Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: Over 40 cities across the globe walked in solidarity with thousands of children who trek from their homes every evening to ‘night commuter centres’ in northern Uganda.
Over 40 cities across the globe walked in solidarity with thousands of children who trek from their homes every evening to ‘night commuter centres’ in northern Uganda. They leave their homes to escape the possibility of being abducted, maimed or killed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Over 20,000 children have been abducted already; the girls are used as sex slaves and the boys forced to commit atrocities against their own communities and/or relatives. The Gulu district chairperson, Lt Col Walter Ochora was critical of the international community saying that it “has done very little to make sure that this war ends.” He said that because northern Uganda had nothing to offer, the international community had less interest in ending the war. Messages were created by the children in the form of poems, songs and speeches, which concentrated on ending the 19-year conflict. Some children cried as they sung about the suffering they had been through. “Our parents have been killed, our siblings are no more, we don’t know what it means to sleep comfortably. What did we do?” one girl lamented in a song. In cities around the world, people walked in solidarity with the children on this night, sleeping rough places enduring cold windy weather and thunderstorms. The participants returned to their homes in the following morning. World Vision was among the many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that participated in the walk. Some members of NGOs spent the night at the World Vision Children of War Rehabilitation Centre.