Editing Nicholas Soames (section)

==Aegis Defence Services==
Soames was chairman<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aegisworld.com/index.php/new2/about-us-2/management2 |title=Management |publisher=Aegisworld.com |access-date=30 July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130724052950/http://www.aegisworld.com/index.php/new2/about-us-2/management2 |archive-date=24 July 2013 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aegisworld.com/index.php/new2/about-us-2/management2 |title=www.aegisworld.com |publisher=www.aegisworld.com |access-date=30 July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130724052950/http://www.aegisworld.com/index.php/new2/about-us-2/management2 |archive-date=24 July 2013 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> of the private security contractor [[Aegis Defence Services]] which was bought<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=GardaWorld announces Aegis Group purchase |url=https://www.canadiansecuritymag.com/news/industry-news/gardaworld-announces-aegis-group-purchase |work=Canadian Security |date=14 July 2015 |access-date=31 October 2018 }}{{Dead link|date=January 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> in 2015 by [[GardaWorld]], for whom he now acts as a member of the International Advisory Board. Aegis had a series of contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide guards to protect US military bases in Iraq from 2004 onwards. From 2011, the company broadened its recruitment to take in African countries, having previously employed people from the UK, the US and Nepal.

Contract documents say that the soldiers from Sierra Leone were paid $16 (£11) a day. A documentary, ''The Child Soldier's New Job'', broadcast in Denmark, alleges that the estimated 2,500 Sierra Leonean personnel who were recruited by Aegis and other private security companies to work in Iraq included former child soldiers.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ross |first=Alice |title=UK firm 'employed former child soldiers' as mercenaries in Iraq |url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/17/uk-firm-employed-former-child-soldiers-as-mercenaries-in-iraq |work=The Guardian |date=17 April 2016 |access-date=23 May 2016}}</ref>