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afrol News, 26 May - The Sierra Leonean rebel/terrorist group RUF reportedly has released over 400 child combatants to the United Nations over the last days, in a move that has been hailed by the UN. Thousands still remain in slavery. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) yesterday welcomed the release by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of some 400 child combatants and children associated with the fighting forces. UNAMSIL described the release as "a major step by the RUF in its compliance with the Lomé, Abuja and Freetown agreements signed by the parties to the Sierra Leone conflict." The Mission hailed the move as "a goodwill gesture" and said it expected more children to be freed as the peace process moved forward. In a statement issued in Freetown and New York, UNICEF said the RUF's release of the child combatants and abductees in Makeni marked a "significant demonstration" of commitment to the peace process. UNICEF also took the occasion to urge all factions in the civil conflict to cease using child soldiers. - We are greatly encouraged by the initiative taken by the RUF to demobilize children associated with their fighting force, said JoAnna Van Gerpen, UNICEF's representative in Sierra Leone. - Our only regret is that the release of girls has been minimal," she added. According to UNICEF, of the 424 children released, only 3 were girls. A large number of abducted girls are known to be held as sexual slaves by the rebel/terrorist organisation. Boy soldiers are however released in greater number. "As the RUF continues to identify children within its ranks for demobilization, I hope they will ensure that girl combatants and abductees are also released to return to their families, to go to school and to resume a normal life," Ms. Van Gerpen said. Some 355 of the freed children were combatants, while the remainder had been separated from their families due to abduction, displacement and other effects of the civil war. The newly released children join 167 - including 7 girls - freed earlier this month by the RUF. The children will be registered in the national disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programme before being handed over to a UNICEF-supported network of child protection agencies that will care for them while their families are traced, according to information from the UN. Once the families are traced, Ms. Van Gerpen said, UNICEF will follow through by helping to reintegrate the children into the community. "Their desire to learn and to have a normal life - to be a child again - is very moving," she added. "Sierra Leoneans place a high value on education. Providing access to education can be an important strategy for preventing further conflict and also in promoting reconciliation. If there is to be peace in Sierra Leone, we must find a way to fulfil the right of every child in Sierra Leone to a quality basic education." Analysts however say the children, some as young as six, will be traumatised for a long time by their horrific experiences. The brutal atrocities committed by the RUF, including institutionalised rape of young girls and obliging drugged child soldiers to mutilate and kill their own villagers, have marked the children for the rest of their life. The release of children took place after many weeks of advocacy and negotiations. CARITAS Makeni, a UNICEF-supported non-governmental organisation responsible for child protection activities in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, worked for the last two months with a RUF task force to identify and screen the children. As part of recent agreements between the government of Sierra Leone and the RUF, the RUF promised to release child combatants on 25 May. The latest reports of the RUF abducting children and women are from the first months of 2001. While the official RUF policy is demobilising boy soldiers and releasing other abductees, combatants in the field seem to continue the terror on civilians, which originally made the RUF feared and famous. Especially women and girls are still preferred targets. Roughly 600 child combatants have been freed by the RUF so far. The exact number of children abducted by the rebel/terrorist organisation is not known, but the released children are not believed to represent more than ten percent of the abducted. As the first abductions started almost 10 years ago, many former child combatants meanwhile are adult combatants.
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