Uganda: LRA recruits from neighbours -UN

  1. Posted on Friday 27 June 2008 - 09:48
    deodatus
    deofuga@yahoo.com
    Deodatus Mfugale, AfricaNews reporter in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
    A UN report released on Wednesday alleges that the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) is recruiting young people from neighbouring countries although it has supposedly stopped recruiting children from Uganda. However, however, women and children are still among its fighters, the report notes.
    joseph_kony_lra
    UN Secretary General writes in the report that there have been no recent cases of recruitment and use of Ugandan children, or other grave violations against children attributable to LRA. “However, children and women are still present in the LRA ranks, and there has been no movement on their release,” he adds.

    The UN boss notes there are reports alleging that the group has been recruiting children from southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). He cites a case in which three boys from the Sudan and the CAR who escaped from the LRA reported that they had been forced to work for the group as porters. They also reported that girls were present in the ranks, and that they were regularly mistreated including being raped.

    According to the report, on 23 April, authorities in Dungu in eastern DRC reported that 13 people, including four students, were abducted from a primary school following LRA attacks. The allegations have come as the peace talks between LRA and the Government of Uganda are stalled because of the refusal by the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, to sign the final peace agreement.

    Although the rebel group has maintained that it had released all children and women abducted or forcibly conscripted some time ago the report says that this information cannot be independently verified because of the absence of any direct contacts between the UN and the LRA leadership.

    The Secretary-General thus urges the LRA to provide a complete list of names and ages of the women and children remaining in its ranks for verification and to carry out their immediate release.

    The LRA has fought a civil war with the Ugandan Government since the mid-1980s during which it is alleged to abduct as many as 25,000 children and use them as fighters and porters.

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