SA soldiers take kids under their wings

SA soldiers take kids under their wings

Laughing and screaming with excitement, dozens of children gather outside the gates of an SANDF base deep in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to wait for their "adoptive parents".

If the peacekeepers always adopted this type of attitude, we would not be having all these problems. It is this kind of protective and progressive role that the United Nations is supposed to stand for. The fact that these soldiers have taken it upon themselves to bring some hope to these young kids, might be part of an image correction program for SANDF soldiers in the UN mission, but one cannot help but also see it as a genuine reaching-out gesture of friendship and care, and that is what makes us humans.