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Quote: Darfur Jem rebels sign deal to stop child soldiers 21 July 2010 A Sudanese rebel group has signed an agreement to allow the UN access to its bases to check children are not being recruited as soldiers The Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) told the BBC it had been trying to protect children since the beginning of the seven-year conflict in Darfur. The UN said children found in military areas or in conflict zones could be removed under the deal An estimated 6,000 children have been involved in fighting in Darfur The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the UN children's organisation Unicef has hailed the agreement, which took more than a year to negotiate, as a very valuable precedent which it hopes other rebel groups would follow Jem leaders, who travelled to Geneva for the signing, said the movement had no child soldiers but agreed to it as a gesture of goodwill "Jem has no child soldiers actually in its forces at all - and now Unicef has full access to our camps to verify," Jem spokesman Ahmed Hussain Adam told the BBC's Network Africa programme Fighting intensified in Darfur in May after Jem pulled out of peace talks with the government, accusing it of acting in bad faith http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10710315

Quote: SAF and SPLM deny recruiting child soldiers SCRN, 23 May 2010 SAF and SPLM deny recruiting child soldiers The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) have denied having enlisted children as soldiers. SAF spokesperson Sawarmi Khalid Saeed, said that the SAF deals with anyone who recruits children.mirror fm reported He pointed out that the SAF has no militias, and does not support militias. He further urged those who made the accusations to corroborate their claims. Similarly, SPLM spokesperson, Kuol Diem Kuol confirmed to Miraya that there are no child soldiers within the SPLA He said that there is a sector in the army which deals with the protection and rehabilitation children, adding that the unit is under UN supervision. Both the SAF and SPLM were responding to a report on Saturday by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon who for the first time in his report on Children and Armed Conflict, included a list of persistent violators for recruiting and using children in armed conflict. The report cited pro-government militias in Darfur and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Southern Sudan for recruiting children. Rebel and militia fighters from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and the transitional government of Somalia, were also listed in the report. The UN Deputy Spokesperson, Marie Okabe, said that the UN Secretary General, has called on the Security Council to take stronger measures against violators and to use these measures in the mandate of all its sanctions committees. A UN official said that the fluctuating nature of conflicts puts many children in the front line. http://www.bakhitaradio.org/index.php?option=com_conten...local-news&Itemid=67

Quote: SUDAN: SPLM/A begins demobilising child soldiers in Upper Nile NAIROBI, 23 January 2004 (IRIN) - The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) has begun to demobilise a large number of child soldiers in the volatile western Upper Nile region of the south, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. SPLM/A commanders had on Thursday ordered the first batch of 94 children, during a ceremony in the village of Tam, to put down their weapons, return their uniforms, and go back to their families and schools, the agency said in a statement on Friday. UNICEF, which hailed the demobilisation, said the 94 were among an estimated 800 child soldiers to be demobilised in the area. The remainder were to be discharged in the coming days in a series of similar ceremonies supported by UNICEF, it added. Ben Parker, the spokesman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, told IRIN that he hoped this would be the "beginning of the end" of child soldiers in Sudan. "These will be the last of child soldiers in the western Upper Nile region," Parker said. "What is important about it is that we had a window of opportunity to carry out the demobilisation western Upper Nile, which remains unstable due to militia activities." He said, however, that there were still other child soldiers in various places in Sudan who needed to be identified and demobilised. UNICEF has supported the demobilisation of child soldiers throughout southern Sudan since 2000. The agency, which also supported the establishment of a special task force by the rebel movement to demobilise children in rebel ranks, said it had helped in the demobilisation of about 12,000 SPLA children since it started operating in late 2001. Appealing for US $92 million for its 2004 programmes in both northern and southern Sudan, UNICEF said it hoped to dedicate more resources to the demobilisation and reintegration of children from government forces and allied militias. UNICEF support for the task force had totalled about $500,000, it added. The agency said the task force hoped to demobilise all the children in the SPLA before the signing of a peace agreement to end the 20-year conflict with the government. It added, however, that about 2,500 children would "for the time being" remain in the SPLA even after the western Upper Nile demobilisations were complete, many of them in areas that remained insecure. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=48232