Children abducted in Congo crisis

Children have been snatched, people killed and raped and tens of thousands of people forced out of their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, say aid agencies. More relief work is needed to help people caught up in fighting between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and government troops. About 400,000 people in this remote northern part of the central African country have fled their homes as the LRA – whose leader is wanted by the international criminal court, – responded to attacks from troops by harming ordinary people. Hundreds of children have been abducted, people raped and killed in the central African country, according to the United Nations.

Congolese people have been under fire since September, when Congolese and Ugandan forces moved to crush the LRA after it was driven out of Uganda. The fighting has spilled over into Sudan and the Central African Republic. Because of the terror tactics people have fled to the main towns, where locals and relief workers are helping them. In Congo alone, the LRA has killed more than 1,200 people over the last year, according to the UN. And another 2,082 Congolese, about a third of them children, have been kidnapped or reported missing. In an area of the country previously untouched by conflict, 360,000 people have fled their homes. Most are still to receive help say aid workers and desperately need food, water, medical care and psychological support. The mysterious LRA is known for abducting children — forcing the boys to fight and the girls to be abused by soldiers.

On Tuesday, 84 aid and human rights groups in the Congo Advocacy Coalition spoke out against the fighting between the government and LRA, which had been backed by UN peacekeepers since March. Since it started, more than 1,000 people have been killed and 7,000 women and girls have been raped, the coalition said. Some of the militia leaders participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, member groups said in a report on the Human Rights Watch Web site. "We're seeing more cases of mutilation, extreme violence and torture in sexual violence cases against women and girls, and many more of the victims are children," said Immaculee Birhaheka of Promotion et Appui aux Initiatives Feminines (Promotion and Support of Women's Initiatives). "The human rights and humanitarian consequences of the current military operation are simply disastrous," said Marcel Stoessel of Oxfam, a coalition member.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children