Ugandan Girls latest victims of Rebel Abductors by BBC Online 5:59pm 26th Jun, 2003   25th June, 2003    Ugandan soldiers are searching for dozens of girls believed abducted from a Catholic school by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, BBC Online reported today.    Eleven girls apparently escaped when the kidnappers struck the Rwara Girls Secondary School 30 miles from the northeastern town of Soroti, but 40 to 80 were still missing. According to the United Nations, the LRA has abducted more than 5,000 children in the last year alone to use as soldiers, workers and sex slaves. They have waged a war of resistance for 17 years with a hazy political agenda to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments.    Ugandan army spokesman Shaban Bantarisa said "there is no force that can protect every school, every village, every home where you have to deploy forces." He added, "You would need probably about 2 million soldiers in Uganda to do that" (BBC Online, June 25).    According to the London Guardian, Ugandan parents commonly send their children each night to sleep in churches, hospitals and schools, where it is hoped they will be safe from the LRA. The Kitgum Concerned Parents' Association, a group that rehabilitates former child combatants, says the rebels have abducted 14,000 children, 8,000 of whom have escaped or died.    The newspaper reports that the LRA uses child soldiers to abduct other children and punish those who try to run away. One escapee, 17-year-old Patrick Ocaya, said that during his five years with the LRA he led looting expeditions and was ordered to kill seven people by clubbing their heads.    "Sometimes one blow is enough," he said. "You have to make sure the skull is crushed and the brains come out." Asked if he felt sorry for those he abducted, he said, "I didn't have pity. They were my orders."    Italian aid worker Pietro Galli said forcing children to commit such acts serves the LRA's purpose by making them feel like outcasts. "They [children] become too afraid to flee because they've been made to commit atrocities," he said.    The rebels' heavy use of child soldiers has left parents with the choice of letting the war and abductions continue or giving the government information about the rebels' whereabouts -- and risk having their own children shot as rebel fighters. According to Father Jose Gerner, member of a group promoting peace, "The government policy is to destroy them, but the LRA is women and children" (Rory Carroll, London Guardian, June 25). Visit the related web page
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