Children rescued

last updated 8 January 2015

Kampala, Uganda

The Ugandan army this week rescued 149 children who were being held by a rebel group in northern Uganda. Government officials say the children, many suffering from malnutrition, were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has been fighting the government for five years. During that time, thousands of children have been taken to LRA bases in southern Sudan, where, according to humanitarian groups, the boys are trained as child soldiers and the girls turned into sex slaves. An army spokesman said the rescue capped a weeklong operation in which 24 rebels and three army soldiers died.