Thousands of children remain in the ranks or are associated with armed groups from rebel factions, including the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel group, the Toroboros, the Convention révolutionnaire démocratique du Tchad (CFDT), Concorde nationale tchadienne (CNT), Front uni pour le changement (FUC) and Union des forces pour la démocratie et le développement (UFDD). More than a quarter of FUC combatants were children, many under the age of 15, it was estimated. It recruited children as young as 12 years of age on a large scale before its integration into the Armée Nationale Tchadienne (ANT) in late 2006. There were confirmed reports that between January 2006 and May 2007 the FUC abducted children in the Guéréda area on their way to school or the market to strengthen their forces. Other children were forcibly recruited from refugee camps.364 In November 2008, Human Rights Watch cited the case of a 15-year-old boy apparently abducted from a school in Djabal refugee camp, in Silva, eastern Chad, by the Sudanese rebel group, JEM, which is backed by the Chadian government, during an attack on a Khartoum suburb.365

[Refworld note: The source report "Education under Attack 2010" was posted on the UNESCO website (www.unesco.org) in pdf format, with country chapters run together. Original footnote numbers have been retained here.]

364 UNSC, Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Chad, S/2007/400 (July 3, 2007), as cited in Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldiers Global Report 2008, 93.

365 Human Rights Watch (HRW), "Briefing to the UN Security Council on the Situation in Chad and the Central African Republic," December 4, 2008.

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