Francis Maqueda : both a captive and a soldier.two figures of adolescence in the mozambiquan civil war.

In the aftermath of a seventeen year war covering the south aestern part of south Africa, Mozambique’s civil war victims count up to about one million of the fifteen million whole population ; a third of the inhabitants have suffered displacement. The madness of war includes that of thousands of children and youths drafted as servants and soldiers either willingly or forced to. They have been beaten to be forced to fight, being treatened of death, they have either been tortured or have themselves tortured others. Most of them have been drafted during their childhood, so they have become adults or adolescents during the war period.
Understanding this spécific population’s psyche implies using complexe compréhensive méthods ; the character features of général and psychodynamic range are related to child-victim clinical practice, as well as that of authors of extreme violence ; the ethno-psychiatric dimension being the model of other more specific issues related to local particularities. Cultur and the fundamental pact which links men between themselves are both, through these situations, rudely attecked, and this is prejudicial for the future.