SAM MEDNICK
Associated Press
YAMBIO, South Sudan (AP) — When he escaped the armed group that had abducted him at the age of 15, the child soldier swore he'd never go back. But the South Sudanese teen still thinks about returning to the bush, six months after the United Nations secured his release.
"Being asked to kill someone is the hardest thing," he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for his safety.
And yet the army offered him a kind of stability he has yet to find outside it. "I had everything, bedding and clothes, I'd just steal what I needed ... here, I haven't received what I was expecting," he said.
He lives with family, adrift, waiting to attend a U.N.-sponsored job skills program, struggling to forget his past.
There are an estimated 19,000 chi
