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Sitting in a festive hotel lobby in Hull, Roméo Dallaire was, for a moment, transported back to hell — to a dreaded checkpoint in a country on the verge of genocide, to be specific.

The checkpoint was little more than a stick across the road, Dallaire remembered from his well-documented time in Rwanda 25 years ago. It was manned by heavily armed, and tightly wound, children.

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As Dallaire stepped out of his vehicle, one of the child soldiers rushed forward and shoved an AK-47 up his nostril.

“I could see he had his hand on the trigger and his eyes were big.”

While Dallaire focused on the agitated boy with the weapon he could hear shouting in the background. It was a terrifying confrontation.

“What is so chilling is that a child is totally unpredictable,” Dallaire said. It was impossible to know what might make him pull the trigger.

Equally chilling was the fact that Dallaire, who led the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, had no training and no experience dealing with the hair-trigger situation. No one did at the time.