Peacekeepers left more than 6 000 children in Liberia

(AP/News 24) -The only memento Moses Z Kaine has from his father is a T-shirt, left more than two decades ago when the peacekeeper’s tour of duty finished and he returned home, leaving his pregnant girlfriend behind.

The story is as old as war itself: Children left behind by the soldiers who fathered them.

Kaine is among more than 6 000 children fathered by soldiers in a west African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a centre set up to register and support them.

As they enter adulthood two decades after the peacekeepers’ departure, they are the focus of new attention in a world coming to terms with sexual exploitation and abuse by soldiers sent to protect vulnerable communities.