A FORMER militia leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, who is accused of recruiting child soldiers, has become the first individual to face charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the UN News Centre reports. The ICC has formally charged Dyilo with enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities. The country’s long-drawn civil war was fuelled by revenues generated from illegal diamond mining.%%Lubanga Dyilo – who was arrested in March – is the president of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) and was the commander-in-chief of its former military wing, the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC) in 2002-03. According to reports, FPLC commanders systematically abducted boys and girls and then forcibly$$incorporated them into their ranks to help them in their conflict in the Ituri district in the north-eastern DRC. The Congolese national will be the first person to be tried at the ICC since it came into being on July 1, 2002. He could face life in prison if found guilty by the court.