THE HAGUE: International war crimes judges awarded $10 million in landmark reparations to “hundreds or thousands” of former child soldiers conscripted into a Congolese militia and left brutalised by the horrific experience, reports AFP.

Warlord Thomas Lubanga, 56, was jailed for 14 years after being convicted in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The judges said Lubanga was also liable for compensation due to 425 victims, identified by the court, and who at the time of the crimes in 2002-2003 were all under 15. But they stressed that “hundreds or even thousands of additional victims” suffered at the hands of Lubanga’s militia.

Each of the 425 named victims had suffered harm amounting to $8,000 each, for a total of $3.4 million, presiding judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut said.