Home Press Room

Save Abducted Children: Thousands of Ugandan Children Abducted by Lord’s Resistance Army

New York, NY

Refugee Experts Available for Comment

Thousands of parents in northern Uganda are desperately trying to find out what has happened to their children who have been abducted by the rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and taken into southern Sudan. Ten weeks into a Ugandan military operation in southern Sudan to root out the LRA, "Operation Iron Fist" has yielded no results.

"Parents are concerned that their children have been sacrificed in a war that does not distinguish between hostage and fighter," said Allison A. Pillsbury, program manager of the Children and Adolescents Project of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

The children are among over 12,000 children who have been abducted by the LRA and taken to bases across the border in Sudan during the past 14 years. While more than 5,000 have managed to escape, the majority remain essentially slaves, forced to become child soldiers, sexual slaves and laborers.

The Ugandan military has committed a full division of 10,000 soldiers to the offensive, in which the Sudanese government has allowed Ugandan military forces into Sudan to pursue LRA forces. The LRA has scattered into small bands and fled into the mountainous terrain, leaving violence and destruction in their wake. United Nations agencies, international relief organizations and independent media have been denied access to the area to monitor the situation. Nothing concrete is known about the fate of the children, though recent reports allege that thousands have been abandoned by the LRA, left on their own to face starvation, disease and other dangers in hostile terrain.

In March 2002, the governments of Uganda and Sudan declared, in a joint statement to the United Nations Security Council, that they would ensure the safety of innocent civilians, as well as the safe repatriation of abducted children. But as the conflict dragged on, Uganda admitted its forces are unable to protect civilians in southern Sudan and that children have been killed rather than rescued during Ugandan military attacks on the LRA. In response to international criticism, instead of committing to minimizing child casualties, a Ugandan military spokesman said that the children had been militarized, indoctrinated and trained to resist. Such statements serve to sensitize the general public and other governments to accept a massacre of the captive children.

Currently, there are no signs of LRA-abducted children emerging, even as prisoners of war with the Ugandan troops.

"The tragedy unfolding in southern Sudan is a manifestation of the horrors that child soldiers face," said Ms. Pillsbury. "Thousands of abducted children have been forced to participate in atrocities and military combat outside their control and making. Although children, they are also considered soldiers or even terrorists, and thus are viewed as legitimate military targets, while in reality they are being used as human shields. Their situation is doubly precarious: they are forced to fight and are attacked for fighting, rather than rescued and protected."

The Women’s Commission is calling on the international community to send an international team to monitor and report on the situation. It is appealing to the United States to pressure the government of Sudan to allow UN agencies and international relief organizations access to children affected by the conflict, including those used as soldiers.

Women’s Commission Experts available for interviews

Jane D. Lowicki, Senior Coordinator Children and Adolescent’s Project, 212-551-3107
Allison Anderson Pillsbury, Project Manager Children and Adolescent’s Project, 212-551-3107