WE ARRIVED IN Gulu, Uganda, in the early afternoon. For a while, we thought perhaps we had come to the wrong place. Large groups of children were leaving school. Still dressed in their school uniforms, they congregated in the large, open fields to play a game that resembled soccer but without all those pesky rules. Traffic was moving in and out of town in all directions. As we sat in a restaurant overlooking the road, I had to wonder what all the fuss was about.

A noticeable change had occurred by early evening. Traffic was heavier than before, but it was only inbound. Everyone was flocking to town in trucks, cars, bicycles or on foot. Even the mood of the people on the street had changed it was as if a weight had descended on Gulu that could only be lifted by the rising of the sun.

We wandered around town in the late afternoon trying to get our bearings. Our pace was slightly faster than a boy ahead of us on the street and as we walked up beside him he looked up, startled, and said, “Good evening.”

“Well, good evening young man. How are you?” I replied.

“Not fine,” was his response. Kim, my wife and photographer, and I looked at each other for a moment as he sped off, each of us wondering if he’d said what we thought he had.

All over the world, children are afraid of the bogey man, or the local equivalent. In northern Uganda and southern Sudan, they have a good reason to be. Here, the bogey man is real; here he even has a name: Joseph Kony.

Kim Piper

UNICEF states that “the tragedy [in the region] has obliterated childhood as a healthy time of protected growth.” That’s why every evening, tens of thousands of people, most of them children, flood into Gulu. Fearing abduction, murder and mutilation, they sleep in the shelters provided in hospitals, bus stations, mosques and churchyards. When there is no room, they sleep on the streets.

They are called the Night Commuters.

the self-proclaimed “lord”

The word “Uganda” usually brings to mind names like Obote and Amin, brutal dictators characterized by repression and mass graves. It has been a largely outdated perception since Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986. Since then, the Ugandan president has instituted sweeping political and economic reforms, slowly transforming his nation into a model for East African recovery.

Amid the chaos and power vacuum that came between the overthrow of Idi Amin and the coming of Museveni, several groups attempted to take control of the war-torn country. One of these was the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Kim Piper

Led by self-proclaimed “Lord” Joseph Kony, the LRA sprang to life in 1986, the same year the current government was formed to bring stability to the rest of the country. Combining an eclectic mix of African witchcraft and the Old Testament, Kony claimed he was fighting to overthrow the government and institute the rule of the Ten Commandments. Reports from the Ugandan military claiming Kony is illiterate may explain the fact that he doesn’t seem to have a very good grasp of what the Ten Commandments say. In fact, he’s broken nearly every one of them in his brutal campaign in the northern region of Acholiland.

Estimates of the LRA’s strength vary wildly depending on who you’re talking with. The government of Uganda puts the number at less than 500, while independent analysts claim as many as 10,000. Debriefings and interviews with surrendered or captured LRA combatants make the organization sound so decentralized and fragmented that perhaps even Kony himself doesn’t know. Composed almost entirely of abducted children, any attempt to fix the number is necessarily problematic as many escape and are replaced by more abductees.

“Security is improving in the north. The LRA are finished,” says Major Bantarisa, the official Ugandan Army spokesman who prefers to go only by his last name. “This trouble will be over in two months, maybe three. Our plans are to begin moving the displaced peoples back to their villages by February at the latest.”

Bantarisa’s figures seem optimistic in light of the rising numbers of Ugandans thrown out of their homes and villages by fighting. Local aid workers claim that the number of internally displaced Ugandans has risen in the last two years from half a million to more than 1.6 million. The numbers of abductees are no more encouraging: Out of 30,000 believed to have been taken, more than 10,000 have been kidnapped in the last 18 months.

On the northern border of the troubled areas of Uganda sits Sudan, embroiled in its own war between the northern government and the southern secessionists. The government of Sudan, which has long accused the Ugandans of supporting the southern rebels, offered military aid and safe havens to the LRA in response. Kony’s doctrine changed. Whether it was an attempt to appease what many claim is an Islamist government of Sudan or as a part of the deal remains unclear.

Kim Piper

Either way, Kony added several brutal twists loosely based on shariah. In areas under his control, those caught eating pork or even owning pigs have had their lips cut off. Failing to observe the Friday sabbath is now a capital offense. In one of the more inexplicable additions, he has ordered people guilty of riding bicycles to have their feet cut off.

The governments of Uganda and Sudan have recently reopened diplomatic ties. As part of their agreement, the Ugandan army is allowed to operate in a thin section of southern Sudan called the Red Line. The LRA has simply moved north of the line and many sources claim that Kony is basing out of the government-controlled town of Juba. The Sudanese government claims that if the LRA is receiving any support, it is coming from rogue military commanders, and states that it is honoring their commitments to the accord with the Ugandans.

After several disastrous attempts to end the conflict by force in the mid-1990s, the Ugandan government has been trying a different approach. A general amnesty has been issued to all LRA combatants. More funds have been allocated to rehabilitation programs for those rescued, and peace negotiators have been sent to the north.

A respected soldier known as Captain Okechkuriu was sent as the Ugandan Army representative, along with several prominent religious leaders representing the mixed Muslim, Christian and animist populations. The religious leaders were turned away, but many witnessed the death and mutilation of the young captain.

Since then, the American State Department has placed the LRA on its broadly accepted list of terrorist organizations. Britain has joined the US in pledging funds to help fight the group.

Kim Piper Father Igino

looking for a way home

No one in northern Uganda has been spared the effects of the 18-year-old conflict. An entire generation has grown up with the war; children born into it now have children of their own. The scope of the problem and the level of need are overwhelming the groups involved.

The Children of War Rehabilitation Center, run by World Vision in Gulu, was set up to handle a maximum of 250 children. By the end of May this year, the shelter was filled with over 600 former abductees. The children usually stay for a three-month period, but some of the worst cases have been there for as long as a year.

“We have to counsel the parents as well as the children,” says James Otim, the senior program manager for the northern region. “We have committees in the villages and camps to work on community sensitizing. It is necessary for the people to accept them in order to reintegrate them.”

Sometimes, the hardest part of counseling the parents is finding them.

Kim Piper Major Bantarisa

“Some of [the children] were taken very young,” Otim says. “We ask them if they remember anything, a mountain or a river, even somebody’s name.” Their young age and the traumas of life in the bush have all but erased their previous memories. World Vision has managed to find foster families for some. They try to provide school fees for the younger children and vocational training for the older ones who can’t find anyone to take them in.

Every NGO working in the area has a similar story to tell. Underfunded and understaffed, many of their attempts are seemingly futile.

Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) runs a shelter for night commuters in the hospital in nearby Lacor. The night we were there, the less than 100-meter by 100-meter compound held almost 5,000 children, segregated by sex and age group to prevent widespread sexual predation. Large army-style tents are set up with one adult per tent, sometimes responsible for more than 200 children in each one. The ever-changing group of youngsters has a large number of former abductees.

Alex Okot, the general manager of the shelter, told us, “The numbers change with the political temperature outside. When it is hot and there are a lot of attacks, there are many children here. When it is cool, it is not so many.”

The shelter has never had fewer than 3,000 children, he notes.

Only two counselors staff the Lacor shelter. They can hardly even attempt to meet the psychological needs of the thousands of young people in their care. Instead, they simply help the worst cases and document the rest. The nursing resources on hand are equally inadequate: Two resident nurses ran a testing program for malaria, with staggering results. Lack of shelter and crowded conditions had taken their toll; every single test came back positive for malaria.

The numbers and qualifications of the counselors available are horribly insufficient. MSF had a psychologist come for one week to train locals to counsel the children. The underprepared counselors have been doing their best, traveling to villages and homes to meet those unable or unwilling to come in to the centers. The NGO is now grappling with how to debrief and counsel its own counselors.

Akol Majok, a leader in the rebel-controlled areas of southern Sudan who has repatriated many of the Sudanese children rescued by Ugandan forces, told me, “Me and you, we can’t imagine what they have been through. Even me, I have been a guerilla for 20 years, I cannot imagine.”

The lack of trained counselors and rehabilitation centers has been partly filled by local religious leaders. Madrassas (Islamic religious education schools) and churches have become rehabilitation centers, and the Catholic confessional has become a counseling session. Imams and priests alike have taken on the roles of psychologists and therapists in addition to the spiritual guidance they offer.

Father Igino came to northern Uganda in 1962. With the exception of a 14-year hiatus courtesy of Idi Amin, he has spent almost his entire adult life in Acholiland. He ministers to the Holy Rosary Parish, where his church shelters thousands every night. He is brought to tears when he recounts the confessions he’s heard:

“The small children, they come in, they say, ‘Forgive me Father, I have killed.’ They tell me the horrible things they have done. They ask me to forgive them, the small children. They need to feel forgiveness.” He goes on to describe children sleepwalking in the night, begging for their guns, begging to kill some unnamed adversary.

Forcing young captives to commit atrocities is a common LRA tactic. The horrific nature of the acts the children are forced to perform can include mutilation and even cannibalism. Forcing them to kill friends and family members makes them less likely to attempt escape for fear of returning to their communities and facing what they have done.

All too often, those fears are well-founded. In the wake of massacres and abductions by an almost invisible and untouchable foe, scared people have vented their rage at the only target available, the rescued abductees.

Father Igino and many of the other religious leaders have turned to traditional ceremonies for help. Matopi is an ancient Acholi ceremony used to end feuds and quarrels. When Islam first reached this land almost a thousand years ago, such practices were forbidden as pagan. Centuries later, the Christians that came with the colonialists shared that view. However, both groups are now finding the ceremonies can be helpful and are devoid of any religious meaning. This unorthodoxy is a direct result of the challenges associated with rehabilitating and reconciling not just the thousands of abductees, but an entire population.

Hands are tied

A horrible paradox exists for the citizens of northern Uganda and southern Sudan. If you’re out collecting firewood or working in a field and you see an LRA gang pass by, what do you do? Many of these people have known children who were abducted. Possibly the child wasn’t theirs, but a friend or family member’s child. Do you alert the army? Do you ask the army to come kill your child, or do you hope they are simply passing through?

The same question pervades the thinking of the Ugandan army. “We could easily just kill them all,” says Major Bantarisa. “But so many are abducted children.”

General amnesty is granted to all members of the LRA, regardless of how they came to be with the organization or whether they surrendered or were captured. Major Bantarisa explains this by asking, “Where do you draw the line? Some have been in the bush for more than 10 years, but they were still only a child when they were taken. This man, Kony, he takes small children, because the mind of a child is like clay, you can mold it however you like,” he continues.

Some of the children who escape go straight home to their villages and families. Those who are rescued or captured spend a week in a Ugandan army debriefing center before being sent either home or to a rehabilitation center. The army offers them enlistment at this point. It claims it abides a minimum enlistment age of 18, yet several NGOs question how much attention recruitment officers really pay.

Vincent, a logistics officer with MSF who spoke on condition his last name not be used, told us, “They take these children straight out of the bush, they’re scared to death of what the army will do to them because of the lies they’ve been told. They’re scared to go home to their villages, and then they ask them to join the army. It amounts to a double victimization.”

A vicious circle?

The World Food Program is often the only international relief agency that makes it out to some of the more remote camps for the displaced. The distances and dangers of overland travel have led to serious shortcomings in the relief effort. One aid worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says the security situation is the worst it has been in 10 years. The result, he says, is that only 40-50 percent of the displaced’s actual needs are being met.

Traveling only in armed convoys, World Food Program personnel provide not only food, but also documentation and advocacy programs for those who would otherwise have no voice.

Hester is one of those the group has helped. She was abducted when she was 15 and held for nine years, taken from her native Uganda to one of the safe havens allegedly provided to the LRA by the government of Sudan.

“In Sudan, they began training us as soldiers. We were told how to fire a gun, and how to line up when you go to the front line fighting the enemy,” she says of her induction into their ranks. More often than not, the enemies she was being taught to fight had only recently been villagers like herself. In addition to being made a soldier, she was given to a rebel commander as a “wife.” She does not refer directly to the man who used her as a sex-slave for nine years, only mentioning that she had her first son by the time she was 17.

“You were always commanded to do things, to fight, to kill and to have sex. You were always living in fear,” Hester says.

Hester escaped with the two sons she bore and made her way back down to Uganda. Now she is 24 years old, a single mother with little education and no skills she can use to support herself.

“As for me, my life has been completely ruined by them. I have no life anymore. But I want at least my children to have a future. I want them to have an education and a real life.”

Unless something is done to end the 18-year-old war against the children of this region, Hester’s two young sons could face the same childhood as their mother endured.  et