News Article by AFP posted on October 23, 2000 at 10:33:01: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudanese rebels renew promise to demobilise child soldiers
RUMBEK, Sudan, Oct 22 (AFP) - Sudan's main rebel movement on
Sunday
assured visiting UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive
Director Carol Bellamy
that it was committed to the demobilisation
of child soldiers from its armed
forces.
"We recognise that the military is no place for children and it
is the
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) policy that children
under the age of
18 should not be in the army," SPLA deputy
commander Salva Kiir said.
Kiir handed Bellamy a document stating SPLA's commitment to
the
demobilisation process.
Some 116 boys under the age of 18 were removed from the SPLA on
Saturday
to join a group of about 300 others at Deng Nhial Primary
School, which has
been set up for children coming out of the army in
this southern Sudan town,
with the help of UNICEF.
"We congratulate the SPLA for its commitment to the
demobilisation
process, and UNICEF will continue assisting in
education, demobilisation and
the reunification of the children with
their parents," Bellamy said.
Kiir said it was not SPLA policy to recruit children, but that
many were
orphans who had joined the movement for security.
Bellamy also inaugurated a
polio immunization campaign for
southern Sudan, administering the vaccine to
three babies.
The rebels declared a 10-day ceasefire last Tuesday to enable
the
immunization programme to proceed smoothly, at the request of
UNICEF.
Civil war has opposed southern Christian and animist rebels and
the
central Islamic and Arab authorities in Khartoum since 1983.