Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 20:15:21 +0200
As a new film about child soldiers is released, David Blair speaks to a boy caught up in South Sudan's conflict
8:00AM BST 16 Oct 2015
At the age of 14, Gatwech is already a veteran of South Sudan’s civil war. He joined the national army a year ago – supposedly of his own volition – and soon became accustomed to the fury of battle.
But Gatwech (not his real name) claims to be fearless. Asked how he had managed to avoid any feelings of terror, he replied: “I am a man”.
The slender boy wears camouflage trousers and struggles with the weight of his Kalashnikov assault rifle. He is one at least 12,000 child soldiers who have fought in South Sudan’s civil war. Both the army and the rebels have recruited boys and hurled them into a brutal conflict that has forced 2.2 million people to flee their homes.
The plight of children like Gatwech is the subject of a new film, Beasts of No Nation, starring Idriss Elba, the British actor.
Yet, with all the bravado of early adolescence, the South Sudanese boy does not see himself as a victim. He claims to have volunteered for service after the death of his father in 2014. Gatwech said that he joined the army in order to support his mother and six siblings.
“I was the one who decided to go to the army. I was not taken by force,” he said. “I went to a military base and told them I wanted to join.”
Army bases in South Sudan are little more than clusters of mud huts surrounded by foxholes and machine gun nests. Whoever was in command of the position visited by Gatwech clearly had no qualms about accepting a child who was only 13 at the time.
The boy was trained how to use a Kalashnikov before being sent into battle against rebels in Unity State. “I have been in a fight,” he remembered. “I saw dead bodies on the ground during that fighting. But if you are a man, you are not supposed to fear death.”
Gatwech has never been to school: he can neither read nor write. He proclaimed himself uninterested in learning these skills - or spending any time in the classroom. “I don’t want to go to school – I want to stay a military man,” he said. Gatwech conceded that his mother was worried about him, but added: “I want to be in the army whether my mother likes it or not.”
A sense of power and belonging means that some boys have genuinely volunteered to fight in South Sudan's war. But many others have been forcibly recruited by the opposing forces. If Gatwech ever changes his mind and decides to go to school instead of serving as a combatant, he may not be free to leave the life he claims to have chosen.