children and armed conflict in the democratic republic of the congo

Various indicative factors are used to assess whether a given situation has met the required intensity threshold, such as the number, duration and intensity of individual confrontations the types of weapons and military equipment used the number of persons and types of forces participating in the fighting the number of casualties the extent of material destruction the number of civilians fleeing and the involvement of the United Nations Security Council.

For further information, see ‘Non-international armed conflict' in our Classification section.

Government forces are presumed to satisfy the criteria of organization. Second, in every non-international armed conflict, at least one side to the conflict must be a non-state armed group which must exhibit a certain level of organization in order to qualify as a party to the non-international armed conflict. Two criteria need to be assessed in order to answer the question whether a situation of armed violence amounts to a non-international armed conflict.įirst, the level of armed violence must reach a certain degree of intensity that goes beyond internal disturbances and tensions.

Children and armed conflict in the democratic republic of the congo