In one of her annual reports, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict writes that thousands of children continue to be killed, maimed or abducted, suffer sexual violence, or are denied access to humanitarian assistance or health care in many countries. In several countries, she continues, they have also been used to commit suicide attacks or to serve as human shields. That description corresponds exactly to the ordeal suffered daily by Congolese children due to the presence of numerous foreign and domestic armed groups that plunder the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.