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No Childhood for War Kids

Orphaned and traumatised by wars fought by adults, millions of children around the world cry for peace. Candy Gourlay of IPS reports from London
WHEN he was just ten years old, Pepe watched a band of paramilitary troops hack his father to death with machetes in the rural Philippines.
A few months later, while on an errand to buy rice for his mother, Pepe (not his real name) ran Into the same men at a military checkpoint. They recognised him, tied him to a post and beat him up.
He was found by farmers from a nearby village, wandering silently on a cattle track, bleeding, his clothes torn and bloody.; Farmers sent him to the safety of faraway Manila where doctors found Pepe had broken a few ribs.
"It was two months before Pepe started talking about his experiences," says Rhona Montebon, a social worker who tried to help the boy overcome his trauma over a period of five years.
"We later discovered his sister and mother were killed in the crossfire in an encounter between government troops and guerillas. They were
buried in a mass grave. It was hard to find a way to tell him".
Pepe is one of a swelling number of Filipino, Sri Lankan, Somali, Cambodian, Ethiopian, Sudanese, Afghan and Bosnian children robbed of their childhood by war. Aid workers and psychotherapists are compiling the horror stories to help them cope with brutal conflicts generated by adults.
Over the last decade, ten million children have been psychologically traumatised by war. four million are disabled, and 1.5 million killed, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
About 15 million children are displaced by war but UNICEF is finding it increasingly difficult to document the number transplanted from war zones to safe havens in other countries as many refugees filter in through unofficial routes.
There are no textbooks on the treatment of children vic-
timised by war. Psychotherapists and social workers have to learn on their feet, shedding previous training in favour of instinct.
"You need a lol of flexibility in dealing with these children.” says Angela Hawke of UNICEF. "It all boils down to trust. The idea is to give them their childhood back."
In civil war-ravaged Sudan, aid workers describe a 'childrens republic' that has sprouted from the rubble of violence — thousands of orphaned travelling together from oasis to oasis.
Led by older children they call "teachers", the children's republic developed a regime of
survival that aid workers cannot explain. As conflict approaches their camp, they move on — without word — to their next haven.
In what was left of Iraq after the Gulf War, the Norwegian psychotherapist Dr Magne Raundalen found children so shell-shocked they could only paint and draw pictures of explosions:
Their experience is similar to that of children in the ongoing conflict in the former Yugoslavia, who arc so traumatised by the bombing and exchanges of artillery fire that they are terrified by loud noises.
in Sri Uinka. orphan chil-
dren in refugee camps shiver with fright every time a helicopter thuds overhead and reminds them of gunfire from the sky that killed their parents.
In Mozambique, which aid workers, have given the dubious title world leader' In child victims of war, children were forcibly recruited by guerilla groups, killing as well as being killed.
When restored to their villages, the combination of guilt and trauma leave them so crippled psychotically that they cannot cope with ordinary life.
"At UNICEF, what we do Is help parents and teachers spot signs of a traumatised child," says Hawke.
"A child may be having nightmares, he may go through a period of bedwetting. Or he may be frightened of very loud noises — this was espcclaly true of children we dealt with
in Iraq and Kuwait. They may be very anxious for adults to remain near them. They may display violent or aggressive behaviour.
The single most common feeling, psychotherapists and social workers agree. Is guilt.
"In Mozambique, the guilt feelings are enormous because children feel they were part of the violence. When they are brought back to their villages, they have to be shown it's not their fault. Otherwise they start building up problems for the future," says Hawke.
There is a tragic epilogue to the story of Pepe, who progressed under care of the Manila based Children's Rehabilitation Centre (CRC) from a ten-year-old struck dumb by violence to a teenager eager to resume normal Me.
One day. CRC workers found that Pepe had vanished. He Is believed to have returned to his home village, deep In mountains where guerillas are still fighting government troops