The LRA targets innocent civilians in small villages and towns for their hate crimes, while male children strong enough to carry weapons and female children fit for slavery, both sex and domestic, are captured and violently indoctrinated. Minors make up almost 90% of the LRA’s soldiers.
What?
The LRA masquerade as military officers and attack villages during community gatherings, such as during church meetings or large celebrations. They then proceed to kill the old and the weak with machetes, (large, broad knife-like weapons), and torture the others to inspire fear. They cut off lips, ears, and noses to leave their mark on the villagers, then leave, taking with them children for their army and slaves for sex and domestic purposes.
After being captured the children are tied together and marched to camps where they are violently indoctrinated into the LRA. Ties to family are cut by forcing the future child soldiers to kill or rape family members. Any who try to escape are tortured and killed. They are forced to do horrendous crimes once they have been fully integrated into the army, and many that have been rehabilitated in later year never forgive themselves for their crimes-
"The boy who had cut me… may still fear revenge but I have forgiven him"
Geoffrey Obita
Where?
When? The LRA started in Uganda, and for the last 24 years has led a terrifying regime in Uganda, led by Joseph Kony. Recently, however, due to outside help from the UN and other organizations, the country’s army was able to disband the rebel forces. Unfortunately, this only forced the havoc wreaking forces to scatter across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and southern Sudan, where brutal attacks continue on remote villages that can take months to be reported.
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army
Why? When first created in the 1980’s, a woman named Alice Lakwena claimed that the Holy Spirit spoke to her and ordered her to overthrow the government. She was eventually exiled, and her self-proclaimed ‘cousin’ Joseph Kony took over, leading the army with the supposed intention of taking over the government to ‘rule by the ten commandments.’