In South Sudan, a Ghost of Wars Past: Child Soldiers

BENTIU, South Sudan — Stretched out on a tarp on the floor of a makeshift hospital on a dirt road outside this town, a soldier in a leg cast was laughing and joking with other wounded fighters. His smile was broad and innocent, his voice not yet changed by puberty.

“I am 17,” said the soldier, Lat Magai.

Perhaps he is, but that is unlikely. And that held true for four others in the room, as well as in a convoy outside where soldiers in oversized uniforms, and not yet grown-up height, ducked cameras and questions from strangers. They know they are not supposed to be here: they are too young to be soldiers.

More than six months of fighting in South Sudan has produced a replay of its recent bloody history. Thousands have died, and more than one million people have been displaced. Famine is threatening, and cholera has broken out in some places. Sexual violence is on the rise. And the United Nations and other observers said another ghost of wars past is again rearing its head: the recruitment of child soldiers.

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