Child Soldiers of Central Africa

Experts estimate between 7,000 and 10,000 child soldiers operate in Chad in the national army, rebel and militia groups. Globally, the U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF believes there are some 250,000 child soldiers.

Seven child fighters are seen at a Save the Children compound in Bunia, Congo, June, 2003, after they left a militia army. Some 50 percent of tribal fighters in Ituri are children aged less than 18 years of age.

A young Sudan People's Liberation Army child soldier holds a gun during the demobilization of soldiers at Rumbek, southern Sudan.

African countries where the United Nations says armed groups have persistantly used child soldiers in the last five years.

A Save the Children report counted 33 armed conflicts, many of them civil wars, where children have been fighting. Save the Children is promoting a U.N. pact that would raise the minimum recruitment age to 17.

A Chadian army child soldier is seen in Am Timan, Chad. Chad pledged in May of 2007 to work to demobilize hundreds of child soldiers fighting in the ranks of the government army and rebel groups across conflict-torn central Africa.

Child soldiers take a rest as they wait for instructions in an ethnic Hema militia camp near Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, June, 2003.