Emmanuel Jal was eight when he was given a gun and trained to fight. By the time he was 13, he had been in two wars. Today, the former child soldier is becoming Kenya’s hottest rap singer. (如今,昔日的孩子兵已經成為肯尼亞最炙手可熱的rap歌手)His songs mix messages of peace with his personal stories.

When war reached Jal’s small village, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (蘇丹人民解放軍)(SPLA) ordered children be sent to UN-run(聯合國管轄的) refugee camps （難民營） in Ethiopia.(埃塞俄比亞) The SPLA promised that the children would be fed and educated there. Seven-year-old Jal had little choice but to go to the crowded camps. He stayed in school there for only six months.

“Then we were taken away from the camp to the bush for training,” he says. “The United Nations had no idea what was going on.(意為:聯合國并不知道我們被訓練去打仗)” The SPLA was looking for new soldiers in the camps. The bigger boys were handed big weapons, but Jal could only manage a smal.