Ravaged Innocents: Children of War

There are millions of innocent children who observe wars as nonparticipating civilianssimple, inoffensive bystanders who lose their families, friends, and lives just by being in a war zone. They endure starvation, disease, dehydration, exposure, and the blinding depression of nothinghood. Many are in lonely, exposed, desolate, denied places from where they wander through dangerous worlds seeking their old homes and families. But the most spectacular victims are the child soldiers who fight and die in violent combat. They do so just like adults do, but more quickly because they are amateurs. They are most prolific in the third world, but they can also be found in central Europe, Great Britain, the United States, and even Ireland.