John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images

An estimated 850,000 children have been displaced by the fighting, UNICEF estimates.

“Children and women tell us of terrible acts of abuse. Many children have been recruited by armed forces, drugged and caught in the violence," UNICEF's regional director for West and Central Africa, Marie-Pierre Poirier, said Monday.

The local population of Kasai state has been displaced by armed militias, reportedly largely made up of children, who survivors say are "bewitched." Refugees, interviewed in neighboring Angola, described rituals and sacrificial killings to OHCHR investigators. It is not the first time children have been used in the conflicts raging in and around the central African nation.