Heartbreaking, horrifying report of child atrocities in Uganda.

[Clarkie1]

To escape the atrocities, thousands of children flee each night from their villages for safety and return each morning. Here is the video:

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/world/2006/02/25/koinange.afriad.of.dark.cnn

More information from world vision:

For 20 years, the rebel group “the Lord’s Resistance Army” (LRA) has been battling the Government of Uganda (GOU) for political power; the war has created a humanitarian disaster that has left generations of children in crisis.
Overview of the Crisis
In 1987, Joseph Kony started a movement to overthrow the government of Uganda. The movement came to be known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Civilians are terrorized in attacks by the LRA. If individuals are suspected of sympathizing with the government, the LRA uses brutal tactics such as cutting off of hands, ears or lips, to intimidate them.

Children are abducted and forced
to serve as child soldiers. Kony creates his army primarily through the violent abduction and forced enlistment of children. Children are used as soldiers, laborers and, in the case of girls, sexual slaves. More than 30,000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA. These rebels, based in southern Sudan, are reportedly being sheltered and armed by some extremists in Sudan's government.

According to the United Nations, more than 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes, into displacement camps. These people are unable to farm due to war and international food assistance is inadequate. Illness is rampant because the country is too insecure for humanitarian aid agencies or the Ugandan government to provide regular health services.

To make matters worse, the LRA attacks displacement camps to abduct children. Because the camps are not secure, parents often feel that they have no other choice but to send their children to walk ("commute") for several miles to the nearest town, where it may be safer.

It is estimated that every night, more than 50,000 children travel to seek safety. On their journey, the children sleep out in the open, unprotected from the LRA or others who want to kidnap them.

A boy at World Vision's Children of War Center draws a picture of his home the way he remembers it before he was kidnapped.
A fragile peace process between Joseph Kony & the government of Uganda is being led by the former Uganda parliamentarian Betty Bigombe. This process has the real potential to bring peace but it is in desperate need of support from the U.S. and other nations.

http://www.worldvision.org/worldvision/wvususfo.nsf/stable/globalissues_uganda

[smirkymonkey]

1. What chance does a society have when it treats it's youngest

and most vulnerable this way. They might think it gives them strenght today, but it will destroy them tomorrow. :grr: