A civil society worker carries crosses with names of civilians killed during the clashes between M23 rebels and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), at the Genocost cemetery, in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Sept. 2.Arlette Bashizi/Reuters
Rwanda, the first African country to sign onto Canada’s campaign against child soldiers, has been secretly using its own military to recruit and deploy children for combat in eastern Congo, a United Nations report says.
Rwandan soldiers and military intelligence agents have recruited children from refugee camps, using false promises of money, and smuggled them across the border to Congo to join the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group, according to the report by a UN-appointed panel of experts.
The findings, submitted to the UN Security Council, are a blow to the Canadian government’s efforts to find African partners for its fight against the use of child soldiers. In recent years, Canada has allocated more than $24-million for child-soldier projects by the Halifax-based Dallaire Institute, which works closely with the Rwandan military and uses Rwanda as its main base in Africa.
The M23 military offensive has triggered a humanitarian disaster in eastern Congo, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee into overcrowded camps where death and disease are common. UN reports over the past two years have documented mass killings and other atrocities by the rebels, who have captured a vast swath of territory and put the city of Goma under siege.
Child recruits as young as 15 were combat-trained by soldiers from the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and then dispatched to the front lines to fight or dig trenches for M23, while younger children were given other military duties, the final UN report says.
“The youngest children … carried out chores and acted as escorts or servants to commanders until they became ‘ripe’ for combat duty,” it said.
Canada’s child-soldier effort hits headwind in Congo
Some of the children were as young as 10, the report said. “Those who did not consent were taken forcefully,” it said, citing testimony that it gathered from former Rwandan soldiers, child recruits and other sources.
At one M23 training camp, at least 20 per cent of the estimated 1,000 recruits were children, including some recruited from Rwanda, the report said. “A former RDF officer confirmed that recruiters were trained intelligence officers adept at ideological persuasion, who employed financial incentives or indoctrination tactics to convince recruits.”
The report was submitted to the UN Security Council in June and has been circulating among governments and researchers since July.
The Dallaire Institute has worked closely with the Rwandan military for more than a decade, signing agreements with Rwanda that prohibit the use of child soldiers. Rwanda has repeatedly pledged to refrain from the use of child soldiers, and it was an early signatory of the Vancouver Principles, an international agreement that Canada promoted in 2017 to ban the recruitment or deployment of children by armed forces and militias. Those partnerships could now be called into question.
In a statement in July, the Canadian government said it was “deeply concerned” by the final report of the UN experts, which disclosed a range of issues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including the presence of up to 4,000 Rwandan troops in eastern Congo. But the Canadian statement did not mention the report’s findings on Rwanda’s use of child soldiers.
Asked specifically about the report’s conclusions on Rwandan recruitment of child soldiers, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada did not reply directly. The spokesperson, Louis-Carl Brissette Lesage, repeated the earlier statement that the department is deeply troubled by the report. The department also called on Rwanda and Congo to halt their support for illegal armed groups.
Stacey McCarthy, a spokesperson for the Dallaire Institute, declined to comment on the UN report or the institute’s partnership with the Rwandan military. “We have no new information to share with you at this time,” she said. “We remain focused on advancing the Vancouver Principles in Africa.”
Yolande Makolo, a spokesperson for the Rwandan government, said the UN report’s conclusions about the recruitment of child soldiers are “absurd.” She told The Globe and Mail: “It’s blatant information warfare against Rwanda.”
An earlier report by the UN Group of Experts last year had found that the M23 militia was recruiting child soldiers. It also found extensive evidence that Rwanda was arming and supporting M23. But the final report goes further, saying that the Rwandan military itself is involved in recruiting and deploying children.
Last year’s UN report had sparked internal concerns at Global Affairs about a planned $19.1-million in federal funding for the latest Dallaire Institute project to promote the Vancouver Principles in Africa. A departmental memo, seen by The Globe, said there were “significant risks” to the project because the Dallaire Institute has a “close partnership” with the Rwandan military at a time when the Rwandan-backed militia was recruiting children in Congo. But the project was given final approval by the federal government in December and is now under way.
Rwanda was one of several African countries added to an official U.S. sanctions list in September, 2023 under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, because of its links to M23. The move prohibits U.S. military assistance to Rwanda, although the U.S. government has the authority to issue a waiver.
Several other militia groups in eastern Congo have been implicated in the use of child soldiers, according to UN reports.