US based Human Rights Watch called on the Democratic Republic of Congo to spare the lives of four child soldiers, who were aged between 14 and 16 when they were sentenced to death by Congo’s Court of Military Order. The rights advocacy group said the DRC has executed at least one child soldier, a 14-year-old who was put to death shortly after being sentenced in January 2000. HRW noted that Congolese military “routinely recruited and used child soldiers under the late President Laurent Kabila.” It cited United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that DRC still has around 12_000 child soldiers. And so far, President Joseph Kabila has not used his sole power to commute the death sentence so far, HRW said, adding that former president Laurent Kabila was known to have granted just two pardons, one of them for a 13-year-old offender sentenced to death in 1998. – AFP