The Congolese government has released a first group of child soldiers into the care of the United Nations. The two-hundred-and-thirty-five youths, aged between fifteen and nineteen, handed in their guns and uniforms at a military barracks in the capital Kinshasa. They'd spent between three and five years as soldiers in Congolese army. A spokeswoman for the United Nations Children's Agency, Carole Baudouin, said she hoped all remaining child soldiers, estimated at six-thousand, would soon be demobilised. The disarmament programme was carried out jointly with the UN and the rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy.