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File photo of soldiers in Myanmar. Shutterstock/Nicholas Ganz
evening sitdown
Your evening longread: The twin brothers who were former child soldiers
It’s a coronavirus-free zone as we bring you an interesting longread each evening to take your mind off the news.
EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday.
And now, every weeknight, we bring you an evening longread to enjoy which will help you to escape the news cycle.
We’ll be keeping an eye on new longreads and digging back into the archives for some classics.
Johnny and Luther Htoo were the commanders of God’s Army when they were just small children. Now adults, their time as child soldiers has greatly impacted their lives.
(New York Times, approx 15 mins reading time)
Just before the turn of the century, Luther and Johnny Htoo, then not even 10 years old, took command of a Karen militia hundreds strong that aimed to protect the ethnic group from incursions by the Myanmar Army. The boys were barely taller than their rifles. But their followers, descendants of Baptists converted by American missionaries, worshiped the twins. Each, they said, could use prayer to conjure up a battalion of invisible soldiers sent by God.
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