UN official calls for greater effort on abductees

UNICEF regional representative Thomas McDermott has called on the Sudanese government to increase efforts to repatriate Ugandan children abducted by the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and held captive inside Sudan. "It appears Sudan is committed to this project, but the government needs to speed up the process so that the thousands of children in abusive situations can be back with their families as soon as possible," said McDermott, UNICEF representative for the Middle East and North Africa. According to UNICEF, a total of 323 LRA abductees who escaped in southern Sudan during 2000-01 have become part of a programme of repatriation to Uganda via Khartoum, under the auspices of UNICEF, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the governments of Uganda and Sudan. During a visit to Sudan last week, McDermott also urged the government to use oil revenues to increase access to the Sudanese education system. He said that although the government had "made progress" on higher education, more effort was needed to improve basic primary education and for a special curriculum on HIV/AIDS to be integrated into the school system. "It is clear that there are new opportunities for Sudan - oil revenue and strong hopes for peace being the primary ones," he added. McDermott praised the government for establishing a unit in the education ministry to deal with the education of girls, and for guaranteeing the salaries of primary school teachers. "I was pleased to learn from the education authorities that the government has agreed to pay the salaries of all primary school teachers from the federal budget, thereby ensuring that poorer states will be in a better position to retain trained teachers - a key factor to improved quality education," he said. In a separate statement last week, UNICEF said that 18 former LRA abductees returning from LRA captivity in Sudan would be transported to their homes in Gulu, Kitgum and Apac districts in northern Uganda. The agency estimated that, of the 30,839 people registered abductees between 1986 and 2001, 79 percent originated in Gulu and Kitgum. Led by the self-proclaimed mystic, Joseph Kony, the LRA has been fighting a guerilla-style war against Ugandan government forces since the late 1980s, ostensibly in a desire to have Uganda ruled according to the Ten Commandments of the Bible. The militia frequently attacks camps for internally displaced persons, looting goods and abducting people to carry them or serve as fighters or commanders' sex slaves. The LRA has become increasingly isolated in recent months, as Ugandan-Sudanese relations have taken important steps forward - including the exchange of envoys by Kampala and Khartoum, according to humanitarian sources. The Sudanese government said in August that it has withdrawn all support from the LRA and, for the first time, it has pledged to take military measures against the rebel group. In addition, the Sudanese charge d'affaires in Uganda, Siraj al-Din Muhammad, said on Saturday, 20 October, that Sudanese government forces were working to locate Kony and to extradite him to Uganda. "Our government is fighting them [the LRA], because they have started terrorising our people and forcefully recruiting them into their ranks," the Ugandan government-owned daily New Vision quoted him as saying. In agreeing to halt its support to the LRA, the Sudanese government also called on Uganda to sever ties with the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). However, Sudanese presidential adviser on political affairs, Qutbi al-Mahdi, said on Tuesday that Uganda was not abiding by the Nairobi agreement, and was continuing to give sanctuary to the SPLM/A. It was not true that Uganda was still backing the Sudanese rebel movement, Reuters quoted Ugandan army spokesman Phinehas Katirimina as saying on Wednesday. "We are not offering the SPLA any support. They have posted a charge d'affaires here to let them verify this," Katirimina added.