Psychological Effects
As a war stricken environment Sudan has seen generations of war and violence, which has resulted in a high rate of mental illness and psychological effects. Children who have been exposed to this war related violence in early stages of life often experience disruptions in forming attachments. This can result in failure to reach social maturity and form self-regulation and control. These children are often known to form a barrier and block themselves out from the world around them believing people to be untrustworthy and the world to be unsafe. As a result they are on the offensive 24/7. Terrorist organisations, army's and liberation groups seek to target and take advantage of these children's increased vulnerability and recruit them. More disturbing statistics show that more than 100,000 child soldiers, in Africa's long-standing civil war, have been subjected to war related violence, such as abduction, torture and sexual abuse, before being recruited in the last 3 years. This suggests the violence is having long term psychological effects on their state of mind and military and activists groups are using this to their advantage by subjecting them to psychological torture before they are indoctrinated. Most of the children that escape, survive and or are released from service almost always face long term effects. The most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorders are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, along with other psychiatric tendencies such as somatic symptoms, behavioural disruptions and outbreaks of hysteria. The recovery time from such events depend on the extent of the damage and the ordeals the child was subjected to, how the child was treated during their post-traumatic period and how well the child coped event/events in question, which is further dependent of their age. Unfortunately however some children do not recover. In some cases children have been through so much and seen so much death and destruction that they become indifferent to their surroundings and people around them. These children lose touch with their emotions, feeling no remorse towards their actions and the suffering of people around them. Others find themselves shunned by society or simply unable to fit back into their pre-war life. These former child soldiers often sur-come to social outcast and sadly enlist in another form of fighting.
Physical Effects
there are many physical effects child soldiers have been known to experience as a result of war and the conditions they are confined to. Death, disability, starvation, illness/disease, assault, rape, sexual abuse and physical injury are only a few of the many physical injurys child soldiers are at risk of. A report by the Secretary-General to the Security Council shows that since 2014, 90 children were verified dead and 2020 injured, though hundreds more were reported they were unable to be verified. One report found up to 490 child corpses buried in mass graves near Bor. na other was filled by a number of boys, ages 14-17, who had been detained for interrogation by security forces and subjected to brutal and degrading treatment, with the boys being beaten and urinated on. 22 reports of sexual violence (including rape) involving 36 children (4 boys and 32 girls) were verified, though needless to say countless other reported incidents were unable to be verified. All of the perpetrators are yet to be caught. Though out of all the physical effects and instances listed above, one of the most common is starvation. As reported by UNICEF, death by starvation and lack of medical services in Africa is 20 times higher than the rate of children killed by other physical injuries. Sadly this rate is one of the highest in the world. As so many injuries occur and the medical facility's are poor and few in number, it is little wonder there are no Solid statistics.