When my colleague Erin Weir and I visited refugee camps in eastern Chad this past May, we heard repeated concerns of child recruitment by armed groups, including both rebel groups and the Chadian National forces.  This was a particular issue in the Oure Cassoni camp near Bahai.

Oure Cassoni lies very close to the border with Sudan, a fact that has long worried many of the organizations that work there, since it has led to problems within the camp related to the presence of armed groups – in particular, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). 

The JEM, a Sudanese rebel group which gets support from the President of Chad, Idriss Deby, has a base close to Oure Cassoni, and many of their families are refugees in the camp.  However, the JEM are also notorious for recruiting children from within the refugee population to serve as soldiers. 

Some parents send their children willingly to fight with the JEM, but many children are forcibly recruited, and their parents have no way of knowing where their children have gone. We were fortunate to meet one amazing mother who decided to take matters into her own hands when her child was taken by the JEM. 

We were introduced to Fatimah (not her real name) while visiting one of the local women’s centers in Oure Cassoni which she helps to run.  During our visit, refugee women were sitting around the center talking and weaving mats out of straw while their children played in the background. 

Fatimah is 30-years-old and has eight children.  Since she fled to the camp in 2004 from Darfur, she has often been without her husband. He frequently travels back and forth between Sudan, like many of the refugees, and she has not had any news of him since 2007. Fatimah told us that it is hard to be alone in the camp with her children, and that she is scared of the constant presence of rebel vehicles. 

Her fears are well founded.

About two months ago, Fatimah’s 15-year-old son was taken by the JEM. She described to us how the JEM often come into the camp to host parties with music, races on the wadi, and accounts from other young soldiers about their adventures in Sudan. Given the lack of other activities for youth in the camp, the JEM are able to attract young refugees, who are then recruited into the “cause.”  Her son disappeared following one of these parties in Oure Cassoni.

Fatimah reported her son’s disappearance to the police in the camp and to the international organizations that are in charge of protection. But there was little they could do to help her. So she went to the JEM herself, and negotiated the release of her son and three of his friends. This was no small feat, given the fact that Fatimah did not have the support of the refugee leaders in the camp, who are all men, and who do nothing to stop the ongoing recruitment. In general, the voices of refugee women in Oure Cassoni often go unheard by the leaders, and Fatimah is that much more remarkable for her courageous action to free her son.

Fatimah told us that if she could leave Oure Cassoni she would, but she has nowhere else to go. Sudan isn’t safe, and she is scared that there is the same problem of child recruitment in the other refugee camps. 

The lack of activities in the camps in eastern Chad for youth contributes to their vulnerability to recruitment by armed groups. Access to secondary education remains difficult, and many refugee children are left idle with nothing to do. More funding for education and skills training activities in the refugee camps will go a long way towards improving the protection of children like Fatimah’s son. The UN Refugee Agency and UNICEF should also increase their presence in the camps by adding more protection staff.