Paramilitary assaults on children and juveniles in Northern Ireland almost doubled in the two years following the signing of the Belfast Agreement, a new report has revealed.
Loyalist and republican gangs carried out "punishment" attacks on 47 under18s during 1999 and 2000, compared with 25 in the previous two years, according to the study by Dr Liam Kennedy, Professor of Modern History at Queen's University, Belfast.
The report - "They Shoot Children, Don't They?" - called for the establishment of an anti-intimidation unit in the North. It urged the Stormont Assembly and General John de Chastelain's decommissioning body to monitor the scale of punishment attacks.