Child soldiers appear to be playing a part on both sides of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. A boy as young as 15 has been shown training pro-Russian separatist recruits in how to handle weapons, while Ukrainian media have told the story of a 17-year-old volunteer sapper. It is a development that particularly worries the UN children's agency, Unicef, which is investigating ‘anecdotal evidence that children have been recruited and may be directly involved in the fighting’. The fighting, which erupted in April, has claimed more than 4,300 lives and left some 10,000 people wounded. ‘Armed groups should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities people under the age of 18 years,’ says the agency's Ukraine representative Giovanna Barberis.