Innocence Lost: The Child Soldiers Forced To Murder

Child Soldiers

The first time I met Ojok Charles it was August 2006. I was travelling in central and east Africa, specifically Uganda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. I was researching my novel, which is set amid the prolific brutality of the region, and I was looking for characters. Within hours of meeting Ojok, a 14-year-old with a pronounced limp and a heavy scar on the top of his head, I knew I'd found my co-protagonist.

His slight build and baby face belied the horror experienced in his short life. Before he'd even hit puberty he had shot enemy troops, looted villages and brutally murdered civilians -- and all against his will: Ojok had been abducted at the age of 10 by the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group led by the atavistic cult leader Joseph Kony, and forced to fight as a child soldier for three years, during which time killing became routine. But as a child soldier Ojok was as much a victim as his victims.

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