Have you ever had to commute at night to find a safe place to sleep, because your home is unsafe? Have you ever been scared for your life and wonder if you will see your family again in the morning? Have you ever had friend’s disappear at night and never to be heard from again? Today, I want to open your eyes to an issue which is still very much an issue today. This issue is the issue of Children Soldiers in Uganda, Africa.
It all started in 1988, when Alice Lakwena, a self proclaimed profit, said she received a message from the Holy Spirit that the Acholi people could defeat the government by using witchcraft practices. Her practices prompted, Joseph Kony, to start a revolution in Uganda. He told people he was a medium and it was rumored that he was possessed. He had a lot of followers who practically worshiped him and later on became his solders in the revolution. Joseph would preach to his followers many weird things and one was that if they put a cross on their chest with oil it would protect them from bullets. Joseph called his army the lord resistance army also commonly referred to as the LRA. It may shock you but his army was considered a Christian militia. He wanted to add more people to his army so that they could take over the Uganda government, however, not many people wanted to be involved in the war. That is when he started to do the unthinkable, and take children from their homes at night.
Joesph Kony in the middle
The LRA would go from home to home at night and take children from their homes and force them to kill. Many times the LRA would take the children and make them kill their parents as initiation into the LRA’s army. Honestly can you even phantom this? It’s horrible enough they are forced against their will to fight but then they have to kill their parents! Overall 30,000 children have been abducted by Joseph Kony and his troops. In fear of being abducted, children would actually go into the town together and sleep in the open so that they wouldn’t be taken. Can you imagine that you can’t even sleep in your own bed because you might be taken captive? The thing that is most shocking for me is that this is still a problem in Uganda. There is currently a seize fire, but still many children go missing ever night. If this happened in America there would be an amber alert out and authorities’frantically searching for the child but it’s totally different on the other side of the world.
War is no place for anyone, let alone a child. This is horrible eye opener of I problem I have never heard about before. To not allow a child have a childhood of love and playfulness will only cause hate throughout their lives and in no way live in common society or family. Never to live a normal life, only knowing how shoot a gun and fight a war. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” A quote said by Jimi Hendrix that strongly represents all of the world’s need for understanding peace.
ReplyDeleteIt is so crazy to think about how these nations around the world are so different from the United States. I couldn’t even imagine being scared to sleep in my own bed for the fear of being abducted in the night. I could never imagine what these kids must go through. I understand that killing happens during wartime, but could you imagine being a kid and having to kill? They must be so terrified. It is insane how people can manipulate others into believing their crazy beliefs. It is sad how unsafe these countries are. I could never imagine living in a country where these horrible acts take place.
ReplyDeleteI’m so thankful for being born and raised here in the United States. Those poor people over there, especially the kids, are brainwashed by those loons and trained to kill. I have seen videos of the happenings there in Uganda, and my senior year in high school, we were visited by a group of people trying to bring awareness to the war. There was an escaped child soldier there at my school telling his story of how he escaped, and how he watched his brother get shot down and killed right next to him as they were running away. It is life changing to hear the stories and to see the children and families there scared for their life. It is sad, and I really hope it ends very soon.
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