Children abducted by Uganda’s LRA rebels flown home

NAIROBI, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Forty-eight children abducted by shadowy Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northern Uganda were flown home on Friday from neighbouring southern Sudan, the United Nations children’s charity said.

The LRA, led by self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony, has kidnapped tens of thousands of children during its 18-year-old insurgency, forcing them to serve the cult-like group as fighters, porters and sex slaves.

UNICEF said the 48 children should be sent straight to centres run by non-governmental organisations where they could receive medical care and then be reunited with their families.

The charity’s Uganda representative, Martin Mogwanja, said the continued targeting of children by the LRA rebels remained a cause of great distress.

“Any incident of abduction and physical or sexual abuse of children is unacceptable and must be condemned outright as breaches of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Uganda is a signatory,” he said in a statement.

The 48 children, reportedly including 12 under the age of eight, were flown from Juba to the northern Ugandan town of Gulu in an airlift organised by the government of Uganda and funded by the International Organisation for Migration, UNICEF said.

It was not immediately clear whether the children had escaped from the rebels or been rescued.

Some 1.6 million people have fled their homes in northern Uganda to escape clashes between the army and the LRA, which has staged repeated raids from bases in lawless southern Sudan.

The group, which most Ugandans say appears to have no clear political aims, is notorious for its brutality, routinely targeting unarmed civilians and mutilating its victims.

But Ugandan army chiefs say they are now close to winning the war following a raid on Kony’s suspected headquarters near Juba last month that killed at least 120 people.

Ugandan troops are allowed to attack the LRA in southern Sudan under a 2002 accord between Kampala and Khartoum.

Read Another Article

Cannibalism case leaves a pall over Narra town
Mormons to expand ASU center

Related News Articles Topic(s): Lord's Resistance Army Subscribe to Religion News Blog updates Subscribe to Religion News Blog [What is this?] Get Religion News Blog's headline by Email [What is this?] Follow Religion News Blog at Twitter Find Related Information Use our custom search engines to find additional research resources on religions and cults: ApologeticsSearch.com: Search for apologetics articles, books, videos, and other research resources across 135 Christian apologetics websites and blogs. CounterCultSearch.com: Search for information about (religious) cults, cult-like organizations, and cults experts -- as well as paranormal-, New Age, and pseudoscientific claims -- across 260+ websites, blogs and forums dedicated to cult research, spiritual abuse, ex-cult counseling & support. Find Related Religion & Spirituality Books at Amazon.com Lord's Resistance Army Possibly related... or Most Popular Religion News Articles Kent Hovind: Evangelist arrested on federal charges Beast’s real mark devalued to ’616′ Muslim Woman Gives Sex Advice on Arab TV Michael Jackson Confirms Conversion to Islam Kent Hovind, ‘Dr. Dino,’ guilty on all counts The fall and rise of Carlton Pearson Search False prophet Harold Camping sets another date for rapture: May 21, 2011 Watch the film Theo van Gogh was murdered for Kent Hovind — Dr. Dino — sentenced to 10 years in prison

Search Religion News Blog