Hope is gaining ground on the front lines of Africa’s most expansive — and exhaustive — battlefield, where Sudanese have killed and maimed other Sudanese in an area the size of Europe for 20 long years. The new reality could be seen in this village west of the Nile the other day when a brigade of rebel soldiers arrived in formation, singing songs of liberation and clutching aging AK-47’s. At their commander’s order, about 100 of the youngest fighters dropped their rifles in the dirt, stripped off their camouflage uniforms and ran around in the hot sun like children. Actually, they were children, the youngest no more than 10. Full Story