Kampala, Sept 20: The Ugandan Army today said that it had rescued 83 children from rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who had kidnapped them from villages in the north and northeast over the past few months. Some of the children, who were rescued yesterday, had slashes on their bodies which appeared to have been inflicted with machetes or axes, Army spokesman Lieutenant Chris Magezi said at the northern town of Lira.
"Ten of them are admitted in Lira Military Hospital with serious machete wounds and some were slashed with axes and left for dead before we rescued them. They have gaping wounds on their heads," he said. The children were abducted from their families in the districts of Kitgum, Lira and Pader, he added.
The officer said that during the past week the army had killed 16 LRA rebels in clashes and that the LRA was responsible for three civilian deaths.
The LRA has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni's government since 1988, ostensibly in a bid to replace it with an administration, which would enforce the Biblical Ten Commandments.
The group's campaign has been marked by brutality against civilians in the north of the country, over 800,000 of whom have been displaced by the fighting. Bureau Report