About 10 000 children are still missing in Uganda with as many as 1 500 held captive by rebels engaged in stalled peace talks to end a two-decade war in the country’s shattered north, an aid agency said.
Children’s charity Save the Children UK has urged donors to pressure the Ugandan government and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels not to allow peace talks in south Sudan to collapse.
”The future of Uganda’s children is under severe threat,” the aid agency said in a statement late on Tuesday. ”Any hope of reconciliation is fading fast and needs international support.”
Stop-start negotiations since July have produced a truce that has been mostly respected, despite frequent walk-outs by the LRA and accusations of violations on both sides.
But talks stalled this month when the rebels said they could not go back to south Sudan because they feared for their security after Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir vowed to ”get rid of the LRA from Sudan”.
The war in northern Uganda, one of Africa’s longest, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 1,7-million into squalid refugee camps.
The LRA, who are notorious for killing civilians and hacking body parts off victims, are estimated to have abducted more than 20 000 children during the insurgency, according to aid workers.
Once abducted, children are forced to fight or carry loot and girls are made ”wives” of rebel commanders.
”Children are still the principle victims of violence,” the statement said. ”1 500 children are still in LRA ranks and at least 10 000 children remain unaccounted for.”
Mediators in the south Sudanese government have tried to woo the LRA back to talks, but the LRA have demanded another venue, outside Juba in south Sudan, suggesting Kenya or South Africa.
Uganda’s government says it will only talk in Juba.
”We have no plans of going to South Africa or Kenya,” head of the government peace team, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda told Reuters on Wednesday. – Reuters