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Home > Uganda: LRA using fear to mould recruits

Contributor [1]
Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 02:00
Categories: 
Social welfare [2]
Issue Number: 
149 [3]
Article-Summary: 

Samuel Opong can hardly believe his luck. The 15-year-old was abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels last year, forcibly trained to fight and, soon afterwards, forced to fight. In three fierce battles with the Ugandan army last December, he was hit by bullets in the left leg and arm. The rebels had forced him and other recent recruits to attack an army unit near the Sudan border. "I lost so much blood I started fainting, so they left me," he told IRIN at Gulu Support the Children...read more [4]

Samuel Opong can hardly believe his luck. The 15-year-old was abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels last year, forcibly trained to fight and, soon afterwards, forced to fight. In three fierce battles with the Ugandan army last December, he was hit by bullets in the left leg and arm. The rebels had forced him and other recent recruits to attack an army unit near the Sudan border. "I lost so much blood I started fainting, so they left me," he told IRIN at Gulu Support the Children Organisation (Gusco) counselling centre for former LRA abductees. "I woke up from the cold next morning and then [government] soldiers found me."

Category: 
Governance [5]
Oldurl: 
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category.php/welfare/21027 [6]
Country: 
Uganda [7]

Source URL: https://www.pambazuka.org/node/21772

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