The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) said on Saturday that hundreds of children had been abducted by an armed group in South Sudan that is assumed to have ties with the country's military.
“We fear they are going from the classroom to the front line,” said UNICEF’s Representative in South Sudan, Jonathan Veitch.
UNICEF believes that hundreds of boys were forcibly recruited by an armed group near the town of Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile state, in mid-February. The agency said the boys were taken while doing their exams.
A general fighting under President Salva Kiir, Johnson Olony is responsible for abducting the boys. Last year 12,000 children were used as soldiers by armed forces and groups across South Sudan, according to UNICEF.
