Thousands of former child soldiers may be among the millions of migrants flowing into Europe, posing a major challenge both for the asylum systems and mental health services. In 2009, the number of child soldiers in Germany was estimated by a Catholic charity to be about 4 per cent of all unaccompanied minors in the country – at that time amounting to between 120 and 200 children. However, over the last seven years the number of unaccompanied children has risen more than ten-fold to 60,000 and the number of former child soldiers is expected to have risen in line, Süeddeutsche Zeitung has reported. In nearly every theatre of war the migrants are fleeing, children are being recruited as soldiers. In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State’s habit of indoctrinating children as soldiers is well documented, but examples have also been noted in Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, and elsewhere. And the numbers of child soldiers in some of these areas are huge: The British organisation Child Soldiers International has estimated that in some provinces of Afghanistan as many as one in ten policemen are underage. Recently the Taliban killed a ten year old boy who had been fighting with government forces. Almost