From Africa Recovery, Vol.11#2 (October 1997), page 25

Report details ordeal of northern Ugandan children

The Scars of Death: Children Abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, by Human Rights Watch (New York, 1997, 137 pp.)

This report chronicles atrocities committed against children of northern Uganda by a rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). With a stated aim of overthrowing the government on behalf of the Acholi people of northern Uganda, but lacking broad support among the Acholi, the LRA abducts children to make up most of its "fighters," the report says. A similar study recently released by Amnesty International also details the LRA's abduction of up to 8,000 children over the last three years.

Numerous children, ranging in age from 10 to 17, who have managed to escape from the LRA, give harrowing accounts of their captivity in the Human Rights Watch report. After being abducted in Gulu or Kitgum district, the children are made to take part in the looting and pillaging of villages, the abduction of other children and the killing of those who attempt to escape. They are then made to march for days, without adequate rest or food, carrying heavy loads of arms or looted food, to LRA camps in southern Sudan. The report alleges that the Sudanese government provides the LRA with food, arms and shelter in exchange for fighting against the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which, according to the report, is in turn aided by the Ugandan government. In addition to labouring as farmers, cooks and nurses, and, in the case of girls, serving as "wives" to LRA commanders, the children who survive are given rudimentary military training and are forced to form the front line and lead charges in battles against the Ugandan army and the SPLA. Many children perish in such battles.

The Scars of Death calls on the LRA and on the governments of Sudan and Uganda to do all they can to stop the abduction and killing of children. It also calls on the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict to investigate the actions of the LRA. Finally, it urges the international community to raise to 18 the minimum age for recruitment of soldiers.

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