ICC awards $10m to brutalised former child soldiers in the DRC
Each of the 425 named victims will get $8,000, giving a total of $3.4m but in a surprise move, the judges awarded a further $6.6m for others who may now come forward
The Hague — On Friday, international war crimes judges awarded $10m in landmark reparations to “hundreds or thousands” of former child soldiers left brutalised and stigmatised after being conscripted into a ruthless Congolese militia. Warlord Thomas Lubanga was jailed for 14 years after being convicted in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The judges said that Lubanga, who is serving his sentence in a Congolese prison, was also liable for compensation to 425 victims, identified by the court. At the time of the crimes in 2002-03, all were under 15. They stressed, though, that it was difficult to determine the exact number of child soldiers drawn into Lubanga’s militia — many of whom were exploited as bodyguards or sex slaves — saying there were “hundreds or even thousands of additional victims”. Each of the 42...
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