LRA abductees return home from Sudan

A group of 48 people, abducted by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the north of the country and taken to Sudan, would soon be returned to returned to their homes, UNICEF stated on Wednesday. The former abductees, including 25 children under 18 years of age, would be repatriated from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Friday (10 August) and would be transported to their home villages in Gulu, Kitgum, Moyo and Apac, the UN agency said in a press statement released in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. All 48 of the group - half of them female - had escaped LRA captivity during this year, having previously been forced to live with Joseph Kony’s rebel army for periods of between one month and seven years, UNICEF stated. A total of 260 people who had escaped LRA captivity in southern Sudan over the past year had become part of the repatriation programme, it said. Many of those 260 had sought sanctuary at a government of Sudan reception centre for escapees in the southern town of Juba, from where their return - through Khartoum - is being coordinated by the Sudanese government’s Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), with the assistance of UNICEF. The Abducted Children Registration and Information Centre, operated jointly the Ugandan government and UNICEF, has estimated that about one-third of 26,365 cases of abduction recorded in the database involved children under the age of 18 years. [For further information see separate IRIN report of 31 July, “HIV/AIDS an extra danger for LRA child soldiers” at: www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/uganda/20010731.phtml]