Child Soldiers | featured news

Islamists in northern Mali have recruited and paid for as many as 1,000 children from rural towns and villages devastated by poverty and hunger. The Associated Press spoke with four children and conducted several dozen interviews with residents and human rights officials. The AP also saw several other children with machine guns half their size strolling down the streets in Timbuktu, where Westerners can no longer go because of the threat of kidnapping.

From 3- and 4-year-olds used as human shields or to gather spent cartridges, to teen-agers offered motorcycles for planting roadside bombs, children ...