Since mid-2002, Uganda has drawn international attention for gross human rights violations and the untold suffering of its people. The war in Acholiland between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government, which has raged since 1986, has escalated significantly since June 2002 and renewed LRA attacks within northern Uganda have been at their most brutal and destructive in the history of the conflict. The number of Ugandans displaced from their homes has more than tripled in two years, increasing from 450,000 in early 2002 to over 1.6 million today. On average 80 percent of the population in the north are displaced.
Drawing by a formerly abducted child in Uganda who was assisted by the IRC
It is estimated that almost half of LRA’s combatants are abducted children. More than 20,000 children have been kidnapped since the conflict began. They are forced to endure tremendous hardship, psychological trauma, and sexual abuse. Children are often forced to kill their own family members and destroy their homes and villages. Younger children are preferred because they are more easily intimidated and indoctrinated. Girls are given to rebel commanders as ‘wives’ or sex slaves. Living conditions in the bush are extremely harsh, and many children die of dehydration and hunger. Fear of abduction drives thousands of children, so-called night commuters, each night into urban areas to seek safety, where they sleep on shop verandas, in bus stations, churches, and factories before returning home the next morning.
BEAN is planning to raise money and educate the local community for the International Rescue Committee, founded by Albert Einstein in 1933.
