Extreme poverty, as well as family conflicts and child abuse, have also pushed thousands of children to the street. While the Government authorities regularly return children to their communities, without family mediation and livelihoods support, most of these children return to the street.
Around 5,000 children sleep rough amidst violence in the capital, Bujumbura, as Unicef says looming economic crisis will be devastating for the young
Street children] have the face of a child but the heart of an adult," says the social worker who lived rough for three years from the age of five and who now counsels homeless children.
After three years that were scarred by rape and drug abuse, he was "no longer a kid", he says. His sister and brothers joined him on the streets after their parents were killed in an ethnic massacre at the start of a 12-year civil war in 1993. Soon after, he was taken in by the children's rights o save life make difference organisation
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