Children Targeted in Uganda’s Horrific, Overlooked War

March 17, 2004 Every day at dusk, thousands of terrified northern Ugandans, the majority of them children, travel to the relative safety of Kitgum town to spend the night. Some carry thin blankets and a bit of food, but most have nothing.
Young girls acknowledge to IRC counselors that they have been sexually assaulted on the way, or during the night as they huddle on street corners and shop verandas.
But in the eyes of desperate parents, the alternative is far worse. Staying at home puts the children at risk of kidnap, torture or murder by the Lord's Resistance Army—a brutal rebel force that has ravaged the countryside and abducted more than 14,000 children to serve as soldiers and slaves in its 18-year war against the Ugandan government.
Once in captivity, boys are ruthlessly indoctrinated; forced to loot and burn villages and torture and kill neighbors. Abducted girls are routinely raped and become sex slaves or “wives” of rebel commanders. All witness unimaginable atrocities and many do not survive.
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