The boys said they approached the French soldiers because they were hungry. Some were so young they didn't quite understand the acts the soldiers demanded in return. One boy, 8 or 9 years old, said he did it several times to the same soldier, "until one day an older kid saw him and told him what he was doing was bad."
Another boy, 9, said he thought the soldiers had been urinating.
UN investigators heard such stories of sexual abuse from several boys in May and June 2014 in Central African Republic, where French soldiers were protecting a sprawling displaced persons camp in the conflict-torn capital, Bangui.
No arrests have been announced, and it's not clear where the accused soldiers, who were supporting a UN peacekeeping force, are now. The UN seems unable to say when the abuses stopped, or how long it continued to investigate.
Source: the New Zealand Herald
