CAR's child fighters to be demobilised

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	CAR's child fighters to be demobilised

Agence France-Presse

September 2, 2007

Former rebels in the restive Central African Republic have signed a pact with the United Nations children’s agency for the demobilisation of hundreds of child soldiers, state radio said yesterday.

The pact between the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity and the United Nations Children’s Fund was signed in Gordil, about 650 kilometres north-east of the capital. Social Affairs Minister Marie-Solange Pagonendji Ndackala was present at the ceremony.

The group used some 200 child fighters in its battle to occupy swathes of the country’s north-east.

Unicef will provide the former child combatants with education material, to pave the way for them to resume studies when the new academic year begins in September.

The pact aims at rehabilitating up to 500 former child fighters.

The UDFR began fighting the government after the current president of the Central African Republic, Francois Bozize, seized power in a 2003 coup.

It signed a peace agreement with the government on April 13 in the town of Birao, near the border with Sudan and Chad, which the rebels had seized in October last year.

The pact provides for an amnesty, the recognition of the UFDR as a political party and the integration of its fighters into the army.

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