A child goes missing in the United States. The police are notified and they issue what in America is referred to as an Amber Alert.  Radio stations begin broadcasting descriptions, while TV stations flash pictures of both the kidnapper and the missing child across the screen. The police, and sometimes the National Army Guard, quickly respond to the situation and take all actions needed. Everything is put into operation to bring a child home to its family.  At the same time, they go after the abductor to put him behind bars, so she or he cannot harm any other child. In the northern districts of Uganda, 30,000 children have been abducted in the past 20 years. A vast majority of families in Acholi and Langi have been affected. These abductions were made by one single man and his army. This is the story of Joseph Kony and the Children Soldiers.

The LRA, Lord’s Resistance Army, is led by a man named Joseph Kony.  Joseph Kony and his army have a mission of establishing a theocratic government and are referred to as “the rebels.” This group was founded in 1986 and has abducted over 30,000 children and displaced almost 2 million people. The LRA has been accused of acts of human rights violations which include, but are not limited to, murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forcing children to partake of hostilities.

The ideology is largely mysterious due to lack of communication on the subject, and though there have been many efforts to search for Joseph Kony and his army, he is still out in rein, abducting and displacing children and women. In Uganda and surrounding areas, adults and children alike lived in fear of the violent attacks of the LRA. Parents lived in fear that their children would be abducted and forced to fight with the rebel army. Children are used as walking weapons and are victims of the cold-hearted man who put them there.In 2006, a group of US Trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers were sent to assassinate Kony, but instead all of them were killed by Kony's men.

December 28, 2008: The Ugandan Army reported that the LRA “hacked to death” 45 people in a church in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. An army spokesman, Captain Chris Magezi, reported the following despcrition of the massacre: "There are body parts everywhere. Inside the church, the entrance, and in the church compound. We got information the rebels cut 45 people into pieces." This event, among with others that took place during the Christmas season, was reffed to as the Christmas Massacres. There were an estimated of 500 victims to the Christmas Massacres, lead by Joseph Kony and the LRA.

This war has been ongoing and is one of Africa’s longest conflicts of this extreme, yet it receives little attention. It has been in my heart since I read “First Kill Your Family: First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.” I am doing outreaches throughout my school, community, and church to spread the story and inform people of this war. You can too! I have found a GREAT website with everything to need to know about getting involved and spreading the story. The website is linked below, along with a petition link.

 
Click Here to Sign The Petition 

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