{"id":224611,"date":"2026-02-21T13:02:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/north-africa\/sudan\/sudans-lion-cubs-the-child-soldiers-going-viral-on-tiktok\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T13:02:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:02:21","slug":"sudans-lion-cubs-the-child-soldiers-going-viral-on-tiktok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/north-africa\/sudan\/sudans-lion-cubs-the-child-soldiers-going-viral-on-tiktok\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan&#8217;s &#8216;Lion Cubs&#8217; &#8211; the Child Soldiers Going Viral On Tiktok"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"7\">Amsterdam \/ Babanusa \u2014 <em><em>Report by Sebastian Vandermeersch and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/en\/all-news\/article\/uk-mps-jeremy-corbyn-and-john-mcdonnell-speak-on-sudan-war-at-london-solidarity-conference?utm_source=pwa-app&amp;utm_medium=pwa-app&amp;utm_campaign=pwa-campaign&amp;utm_term=pwa-term&amp;utm_content=pwa-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amgad Abdelgadir<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"55\"><strong>A joint investigation by Radio Dabanga and Bellingcat* has found that young boys, widely referred to as &#8220;lion cubs,&#8221; have become celebrated figures within the rival groups fighting for control of the country since 2023. Child soldiers linked to Sudan&#8217;s warring factions have gained viral fame on TikTok, with their videos attracting millions of views.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"54\">Many of the videos reviewed show the children in military uniforms&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202602200633.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 North Africa <a title=\"Sudan\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/north-africa\/sudan\/\">Sudan<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amsterdam \/ Babanusa \u2014 Report by Sebastian Vandermeersch and Amgad Abdelgadir A joint investigation by Radio Dabanga and Bellingcat* has found that young boys, widely referred to as &#8220;lion cubs,&#8221; have become celebrated figures within the rival groups fighting for control of the country since 2023. Child soldiers linked to Sudan&#8217;s warring factions have gained [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":224612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00680827:69964b25150478cecc0f2b5237277789:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[258,256,8438,31449,7956,257,4401,254,1613,8105,33857,13080],"class_list":["post-224611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sudan","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-child","tag-cubs","tag-lion","tag-news","tag-soldiers","tag-south-africa-today","tag-sudan-news","tag-sudans","tag-tiktok","tag-viral"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00680827:69964b25150478cecc0f2b5237277789:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}