Church in the World

Hopes fade for Uganda's abducted seminarians

Africa

A fourth teenage seminarian from the group of 41 abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda last week has managed to escape, although hopes are fading for the other boys. Around 50 LRA rebels raided the junior seminary near Gulu town on 10 May, killing an eight-year-old boy and snatching 41 young seminarians from their dormitory.

Fifteen-year-old Okema Colsimo was not sure whether he had been abandoned or forgotten by the rebels when he woke up on 13 May to find himself alone. He spent five days wandering through the bush before being rescued.

Colsimo reported that at least three of the abducted seminarians had been shot by the rebels because they could not keep up. He described his captors as brutal and said they had threatened the boys with death if they did not join them.

'The possibility of liberating the boys is remote, but we will not stop praying to the Lord', said Mgr Matthew Odong, the rector of the seminary. 'The desperation of the boys' families is immense', he said, 'they fear never to see their children again.'

The boys are believed to have been separated into small groups and forced to join rebel lines. LRA rebels routinely abduct children in Northern Uganda and force them to become child soldiers.

Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu said that despair in the area would only end when the world took a real interest in Uganda's war. 'We are anguished by the fact that people abroad know nothing about the tragedy of our people, and the international community is doing nothing to stop it.'

The LRA, which wants to create a society based on its interpretation of the Ten Commandments, has been fighting the Ugandan Government since 1988.