Attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army are on the rise in northeastern Congo’s Oriental province, and the U.N. High Commission for Refugees announced last week that these attacks have forced some 12,500 Congolese civilians from their homes in the past month. These new attacks are consistent with the LRA’s characteristically brutal tactics—abducting children, raping women, razing villages.
Enough is partnering with Invisible Children for a new advocacy push this fall aimed at ending the scourge of the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa. More to come on that front soon, but for now, we’ve collected and just published some powerful testimonies from survivors of the long war in northern Uganda between the LRA and the Ugandan military. The conflict has now shifted out of northern Uganda and into neighboring countries, as the LRA have fled into northeastern Congo, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic to continue their campaign of terror. Although northern Ugandans are slowly returning home, with little infrastructure and few basic services remaining in their abandoned home areas, the rebuilding process has been long and difficult.
Click here to read “Survivors: Stories of War and Perseverance,” for firsthand accounts from people who were abducted by the LRA and taken as child soldiers and sex slaves during the war. These stories were compiled by Enough’s former LRA researcher, Julia Spiegel. As the LRA continues to wreak havoc and commit atrocities across a wide swath of central Africa—from the jungle of northeastern Congo to the remote, arid expanses of the Central African Republic—it is important to remember the damaging and lasting effects this predatory militia has had on northern Uganda. This is yet another reason why coordinated and strategic efforts to end the scourge of the LRA are so badly needed now, before the LRA inflicts suffering upon more communities in central Africa.