JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — After coming face to face with "unpredictable" gun-waving children almost 25 years ago, the former commander of the failed U.N. peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan genocide dedicated his life to eliminating the use of children as weapons of war.
In an interview with The Associated Press in civil war-torn South Sudan, Romeo Dallaire, who is widely known for warning the U.N. about Rwanda's massacre in 1994, said the current approach to combatting child soldier recruitment is not "sufficient." Local security forces must be part of the solution, he said.
His visit marked the launch of a three-year-program by the Canada-based Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.
With 19,000 children associated with armed groups, South Sudan has one of the world's highest rates of child soldiers, according to the U.N.
