GOVERNMENT allied forces in Sierra Leone handed over a group of around 100 former child soldiers and war-affected children to aid workers at a camp in Masiaka. The batch of around 100 former child combattants were handed over by the Civil Defence Force, allied to the Sierra Leonean Army (SLA), to representatives of the UN children’s organisation UNICEF and the Catholic charity Caritas. Some of those handed over had fought for the government side and some for the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), fighting successive governments since 1991, UN and aid officials said. Thousands of children were forced to take up arms in the civil war which resumed last month. The government of Sierra Leone has pledged to stop the use of child soldiers.