- "In the dead of night, [Lord's Resistance Army]
troops steal up on villages, murder the adults and snatch children from
their homes. The result is a flood of terrified youngsters, as young as
three, who come seeking shelter in the army garrison town of Gulu every
night."
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- GULU, Uganda -- Night was thickening over Gulu. Thousands
of small feet scurried through the dark, hurrying towards the town centre.
It was like a procession from Peter Pan, older children dragging the younger
ones, tattered blankets and infant siblings in hand. The pace quickened.
Behind was rebel-infested countryside; ahead lay the promise of safety.
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- Martha Fambi, 15, paused for breath under a line of giant
mahogany trees. "We are afraid to sleep at home," she said tightening
her two-year-old sister on to her back. "The rebels come at night
looking for children. They want to abduct us." She excused herself
and slipped back into the rushing human stream.
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- These children are northern Uganda's "night commuters",
the unwilling prey of one of Africa's strangest yet most tragic wars. They
cannot sleep at home for fear of abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army,
a rebel movement with a ghastly recruitment technique.
-
- In the dead of night, LRA troops steal up on villages,
murder the adults and snatch children from their homes. The result is a
flood of terrified youngsters, as young as three, who come seeking shelter
in the army garrison town of Gulu every night.
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- The lodgings are rough and ready. Last year, the commuters
slept on verandas and street corners; now they cram into barn-like, purpose-built
shelters. One of the largest is supported by Save the Children, one of
three charities Independent readers are supporting in this Christmas Appeal.
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- The tin-roofed sheds look and feel like chicken coops,
but the scale of the emergency is enormous. About 1,500 boys and girls
sleep in Rural Focus Uganda centre, in sardine-like head-to-toe positions
on the hard concrete floor. Shortly after dawn, they fold their belongings
and walk home, some as far as eight miles. It may be uncomfortable, but
it beats the perils of a night at home.
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- In the capital Kampala, 120 miles the south, this extraordinary
crisis seems to be a world away. Mobile-phone billboards clutter streets
lined with internet cafes and fast-food joints. Street vendors sell racy
gossip magazines.
-
- The government of President Yoweri Museveni insists it
is closing to defeating Joseph Kony, the mysterious and elusive LRA leader.
But after 17 years of war, their efforts have yet to yield results.
-
- The LRA is among the world's most shadowy rebel movements.
Kony reportedly believes he is an emissary of God and wants to rule Uganda
using the Ten Commandments. Kony has given only one interview, on a local
FM station, and no outsider has seen him for years, making peace approaches
difficult.
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- More than 80 per cent of the population in three northern
districts, Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, have been displaced by the conflict.
For the children scurrying into town at night, it is a perilous game of
hide and seek. Losing carries a heavy penalty.
-
- Vicky Adoch, a scarred 18-year-old missing one eye, has
already paid the price. Eighteen months ago the LRA attacked her village
at 2am. They axed her three brothers to death, then marched her to a training
camp in nearby Sudan. It was brutal. "So many children died from thirst,
or were killed if they couldn't walk fast enough," she said.
-
- At the camp, she made an amazing discovery, her older
sister, Sunday. Abducted in 1997, Sunday was now a 23-year-old second-lieutenant
in the LRA. Vicky was given cursory training and the AK-47 of another child
soldier who had been killed in action. Months later her platoon walked
into a government ambush. A bullet hit her head below the right ear, and
exited through her eye.
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- Then in November, Vicky escaped, and she is preparing
to return to her family at a reception centre run by Gusco, a local organisation.
Last year Gusco helped more than 1,100 children, most of them deserters
or freed by the Ugandan army, to return to "normal" life.
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- The most painful wounds are psychological. Robert Ojok,
15, sits ramrod straight, his cold, hard eyes staring into the distance.
He was abducted at eight. Since escaping, he has suffered nightmares about
the spirits of the dead returning to take revenge. "There was a lot
of bloodshed. We would run over dead bodies like stepping stones,"
he said.
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- The conflict is linked to the war in neighbouring Sudan.
For years the government of Sudan supported the LRA, supplying rear bases
and weapons, to destabilise their own rebel movement, the SPLA. Robert
said that when he was wounded in 2002, he was flown to Khartoum where President
Omar Al Bashir visited him in hospital. Sudan now claims to have cut its
ties with the LRA.
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- But there appears to be no end in sight, said Jessica
Ochirowijok, an aid worker at the "night commuter" shelter in
Gulu. "We are just crossing the river, but we don't know if the bridge
is broken or not," she said. Then she took off on her rounds, checking
on the small army of lodgers bedding down for the night. Tonight, she will
do the same again.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=478171
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