Colombia: FARC recruitment of child soldiers boosted by pandemic

A number of child soldiers are reported to have been killed when Colombian forces launched an airstrike on a rebel camp earlier this month.

The youngest was a girl aged just nine. The country’s defence minister tried to justify the attack by calling the children “machines of war” and is now facing calls to resign.

The FARC rebels signed a peace agreement with Colombia in 2016, but haven’t stopped recruiting children and young people. And now, as we have been finding out, with so many children out of school because of the pandemic, recruitment has soared.