Project
Rwanda: We Are the Past
Today in Rwanda, the 1994 genocide is part of the past, but the country's thousands of maimed...
In the forests on the border between DRC Congo and Rwanda are still hundreds of child soldiers fighting with the rebels groups such as FLDR and RUD-Urunana. Most of them were kidnapped from their villages and families, and now they have to fight against their own country in a war that the rebels groups will likely never win.
Some of them, occasionally, manage to escape from the forest and find a shelter in Musanze, in the northern province of Rwanda, at the Muhoza Child Ex Combatants Rehabilitation Centre. Here, there are about 30 former child soldiers, with ages ranging between 13 and 18 years old, trying to return to their normal lives.
Emmanuel, Innocent, Jean, John and Martin are among these men. Pulitzer Center grantee Tomaso Clavarino met them, and here are their stories, which are full of violence, in a country that seems to be pacified but is still pervaded by strong tensions.
To read the full article (in Italian), visit La Stampa.
