Militia brigades abducting children and forcing them to become soldiers, porters and sex slaves is a huge problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<br /><br />In the last few months, fighting between the Congolese army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified. <br /><br />Aid agencies describe the situation as catastrophic, warning that recruitment is on the rise.<br /><br />The children go through a terrifying ordeal. Almost immediately they are trained to kill. <br /><br />One tactic favoured by the militia is to force the child to murder a member of his own family<br /><br />There are doubts whether such children will ever recover from their experience at the hands of the rebels - even if they escape it takes time and a lot of rehabilitation before they are ready to go back to their families.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow reports from Goma in DRC.
