[child-rights] UNICEF fears for Ugandan children as cease-fire collapses

-- Statement Attributable to UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy --

NAIROBI / GENEVA, 30 April 2003 I am deeply concerned by the recent 
breakdown of the limited cease-fire in northern Uganda and by reports in 
the past few days of renewed abductions of children and women by the Lords 
Resistance Army (LRA).

Thousands of girls and boys snatched from their families remain unaccounted 
for. An estimated 20,000 children have been abducted since the conflict 
began more than 5,000 in the last year alone. These children are often 
forced to commit atrocities against their own communities and to fight 
alongside their captors. They have been brutally used as human shields and 
sex slaves.

Every resurgence in the fighting brings renewed expressions of concern from 
governments and a wide range of national and international organizations. 
But these concerns have yet to be transformed into a constructive peace 
process.

This intensification of the armed conflict will make more vulnerable an 
already exhausted civilian population in an area plagued by conflict for 
the past 16 years. UNICEF fears that the increased fighting may further 
reduce access to the estimated 800,000 displaced people, causing a rapid 
and significant rise in child mortality and malnutrition.

Furthermore, the broadening of military operations is a setback to hopes 
for peace at this crucial time when efforts were underway to establish a 
peace process.

UNICEF urges both the Government of Uganda and the LRA to renew efforts for 
dialogue, agree on a cease-fire, and guarantee safe and unimpeded 
humanitarian access to all of northern Uganda.

I call upon the parties to this conflict to do everything in their power to 
secure the immediate release and return of all of the abducted children and 
women.

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For further information, please contact:

Jehane Sedky-Lavandero, UNICEF Media, Tel: 212) 326 7269, jsedky@unicef.org