Armed and victimized: Congo's child soldiers

Ann Curry • Profile

GOMA, Congo - The image of two teenage boys playing serenely is a picture of peace uncommon in eastern Congo — and deceptive. Because it masks some of the worst horrors of a vicious ethnic war for land and resources — a war often fought with children.

Just nine months ago, Gabriel and Pascal were playing cat and mouse in the jungles of central Africa – enemies trying to kill each other. But they discovered they were two helpless pawns in a decade-old conflict, and became kindred spirits after separate, hellish journeys.

Two years ago Gabriel Gakara was a regular 14 year-old living in a small village on the edge of a war zone. He played with his brothers and sisters and dreamed of becoming a mechanic. But his life took a dangerous turn toward the edge of despair one day as he sat in a place he thought was safe – his village school.

Ann Curry: What happened?

Gabriel: We were studying when soldiers came into the school and took us from our classroom.

The soldiers took Gabriel and seven of his classmates – some 20 children in all from the area that day – and turned them into new recruits for a notorious rebel commander. Gabriel's first duty was as a gofer for the camp cook.

Gabriel: I had to sleep outside and carry heavy loads.

He says he was ordered to steal food and supplies from nearby villages, and transport ammunition and weapons — under a brutal daily regime. If he dared to play with other child soldiers or tried to leave his unit he risked severe punishment. Children were often beaten, he says, sometimes with a hundred lashes. And he had no way of contacting his family, unaware they were even alive, or if his siblings had also been taken in by armed groups.

Video   Covering the war in Eastern Congo Dateline producer Justin Balding talks about the horrors of the war in Eastern Congo. Dateline NBC

After just three weeks, Gabriel trained to use an automatic rifle and was dispatched to the front lines of combat.

Curry: You are still just a child but you were even younger then. How frightened were you?

Gabriel: When you see someone killed right beside you, you think, "I will also die like this." That made me really afraid.

He says at times the fighting was so chaotic, children switched sides in the heat of battle. While the military code they all observed was the law of the jungle: kill or be killed.

Gabriel: When you shoot someone in front of you and they die, you feel very afraid and you think: "If I was not a soldier I would not have to kill this person."

Curry: how many people do you think you might have killed?

Gabriel: Any time I saw enemy soldiers I had to shoot them. I do not know the number of people I have killed.

But those he did kill came back to haunt him.

Gabriel: I would dream about those who were killed and sometimes I would get up in the middle of the night and wonder what was happening to my life.

He says some of his friends were ordered to kill civilians. As hard as it was to carry out those orders, refusing was worse.

Gabriel: If the commander tells you to kill and you don't obey, they kill you because you are not respecting them.

Gabriel says there were about 1000 other child soldiers in his armed group. He remembers being forced to march 40 miles... And when some of the children couldn't keep up, they were shot. 

Curry: Did you see children who were soldiers with you shot by the commanders?

Gabriel: When the enemy attacked us and our commanders saw they were stronger than us, we would run away. if our commanders saw the children weren't running away fast enough and that the enemy might capture them, then they usually killed those children so that they would not give up information useful to the enemy.

Gabriel says he lost three close friends in battle. But one day last October, the fog of war gave him a lucky break.

Gabriel: When we attacked the government positions, the UN intervened with helicopter gunships and tanks. They scattered our forces. So I was able to escape.

Video   Warlord or liberator? NBC’s Ann Curry asks General Laurent Nkunda about his part in the ongoing war in Eastern Congo. Dateline NBC

Curry: What did it mean to you to finally escape?

Gabriel: For me it was like a deliverance. I escaped into the bush, went to the U.N. soldiers and handed over my weapon to them.

Gabriel was one of 30,000 children that fought for a while before being released from his army. In some areas, more than 50 percent of the children are re-taken into armed groups. Many cannot join their families, displaced by the war and others are forced to fend for themselves in hostile areas.

After nearly a year and a half on the front lines, Gabriel got lucky. He was taken to a center sponsored by the U.N., where he is cared for. He joined some 200 other boys from all sides of Congo's war - a war that has claimed more than 5 million lives.

He says at first he was afraid other boys in the center might try to kill him in the night.  And then, he came face to face with one of his enemies.

Pascal: It is possible I killed Gabriel's friends.

MORE FROM INTERNATIONAL

International Section Front

Billionaire's mysterious death in Monte Carlo Former drug dealer saving kids in Congo What happened to little Madeleine? To catch a baby broker Photos: Children of Jalapa Photos: Inside the Hogar Primavera orphanage Photos: At home with the Galicias Photos: Behind the scenes in Guatemala Missing: Enma Galicia Photos: Together again International Section Front   Add International headlines to your news reader: