He was taught how to hold an assault rifle and aim it at an enemy. He was taught how to pull a trigger, aim at the next enemy and pull the trigger again. He learned all this, he says, by the time he was 12, when he was officially declared a soldier of Burma and sent to the front lines of a long-running civil war. Now 14, the taciturn boy Kyaw Zay Ya lives in a rebel-held village in Burma near the Thai border, one of the few places in the country willing to protect him from service in what human rights monitors call the largest child army in the world. According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, Burma’s army of 350,000 includes as many as 70,000 youths under 18. A study the group issued last October found that rebel groups fighting the army also use child soldiers, though in far smaller numbers. Full Story
About OODA Analyst
OODA is comprised of a unique team of international experts capable of providing advanced intelligence and analysis, strategy and planning support, risk and threat management, training, decision support, crisis response, and security services to global corporations and governments.