Policy recommendations for addressing the rights of the missing and their families in northern Uganda

Abstract

It is difficult to determine how many civilians were abducted or separated from their families and went missing as a result of the 1986-2006 conflict in northern Uganda between the infamous rebel force, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and the armed forces of the Government of Uganda, the National Resistance Army (NRA). The LRA relied on a strategy of abducting children for use as child soldiers in order to maintain their military strength and terrorise the civilian population, while the NRA is accused of various forms of brutality including such acts as abduction, forceful recruitment, rape, torture and child soldiering during the earlier years of the war.2 Reports estimate that 24,000 to 38,000 children have been abducted and forcibly recruited as child soldiers by the LRA alone across northern Uganda.3 By 2007, 22,759 children and adults had registered through the reception centres in the region as returned abductees.4 The fates of the remaining thousands of abductees, both children and adults, are unknown.