Lord's Resistance Army Insurgency - Effects

Effects

The insurgency was historically confined to the region known as Acholiland, consisting of the districts of Kitgum, Gulu, and Pader, though since 2002 violence has overflowed into other Ugandan districts. The LRA also operated across the porous border region with Southern Sudan and most recently into the northeastern Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The plight of the affected people has received little media coverage in the developed world. Not until April 2004 did the UN Security Council issue a formal condemnation. A 2005 poll of humanitarian professionals, media personalities, academics and activists identified the conflict in the north of Uganda as the second worst "forgotten" humanitarian emergency in the world, after the conflicts of the neighbouring DRC.

The U.S. government estimates that up to 12,000 people have been killed in the violence, with many more dying from disease and malnutrition as a direct result of the conflict. Nearly two million civilians have been forced to flee their homes, living in internally displaced person (IDP) camps and within the safety of larger settlements, sleeping on street corners and in other public spaces. The problems of the camps have been expatiated by the government ordering villagers into the camps on pain of being classified as rebels and on occasion shelling those villages who refused to relocate.

While many abductees are taken to carry items looted from raided villages, some are also used as soldiers and sex slaves. The group performs abductions primarily from the Acholi people, who have borne the brunt of the 18 year LRA campaign. The United Nations estimated in the mid-2000s that around 25,000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA since 1987. However, several pieces of research have concluded that the figure was significantly higher. In June 2007, UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center researchers worked with reception centers in northern Uganda to compile a database of 25,000 former abductees that went through reception centers.

By triangulating data from different sources on the number of former abductees, the research conservatively estimate that the LRA has abducted 24,000 to 38,000 children and 28,000 to 37,000 adults as of April 2006. The research further found that while women represented about a third of all the abductees, they tended to stay longer with the LRA compared to men. Women are forced to serve as sexual and domestic servants. According to a survey of 750 youth in Kitgum and Pader, at least 66,000 youth between the ages of 13 and 30 have been abducted. One-third of all boys and one-sixth of all girls had been taken for at least one day.

Of these, 66% of males were taken for longer than two weeks, while the equivalent number for females was 46%. If a female was gone for more than two weeks, there was a one in four chance that she had not returned. Males were again found to be taken for longer periods of time on average, with two in five males that were abducted for more than two weeks not having returned. The number of abductions was greatest in 2002 and 2003, perhaps in retaliation for Operation Iron Fist. However, the average age of abductees has risen from about 13 in 1994 to nearly 18 in 2004, coinciding with the rise in number, and fall in length, of abductions.

While the LRA now appears to consist of less than two thousand combatants that are under intense pressure from the Ugandan military, the government has been unable to end the insurgency to date. Ongoing peace negotiations are complicated by an investigation and trial preparation by the International Criminal Court. The conflict continues to slow down Uganda's development efforts, costing the poor country's economy a cumulative total of at least $1.33 billion, which is equivalent to 3% of GDP, or $100 million annually.