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For
eighteen years now Uganda has been bathed in blood by a civil war with the
Government of Kampala on one side and the rebels of the Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA) on the other. Estimates say at least 100,000 people have died
during the conflict and more than half a million were displaced.
The civilians who are forced to leave their villages gather in huge
refugee camps that the army is not always able to protect. And the
children are the first victims of the attacks and the kidnapping that have
gone on in North Uganda on a daily basis since the day the conflict began.
The children are kidnapped by the rebels and recruited as child soldiers
or used to carry things stolen during the assaults on the villages or the
refugee camps. Since 1987, the year the conflict started, estimated 25,000
children and teenagers have been kidnapped by the LRA, 10,000 during just
the last year.
In the past few months, due to the continuous attacks on the villages and
the ongoing kidnapping, about 40,000 people (prevalently children and
teenagers) from North Uganda districts seek shelter in the cities every
evening. They go and spend the night in hospitals, missions, parishes. The
centre of the cities has always been safe from the guerrilla, since it is
never attacked. "Night commuters" is the name humanitarian
organizations call these people.
At Gulu, every evening at sunset, about 10,000 children and young people
walk through the few streets leading from the outskirts to the city centre
to find protection during the night. They gather in the courtyards of the
hospitals, in the parishes, the missions, in religious institutes or
simply lie down on the streets.
These are the children the Community of Sant'Egidio chose for its long
distance adoption program.
There are 200 children in particular, "night commuters", who
sleep at St. Monica Institute in Gulu.
Some of them don't even have a family to go back to in the morning anymore,
they're orphans, often due to AIDS or because their families were forced
to flee during the night and the children can no longer find them.
The long distance adoptions guarantee these children a stable place in the
Institute, a serene and welcoming place to stay, food, legal registration
- many of them aren't even registered - registration in one of the best
schools in Gulu and they cover school expenses (besides text-books and
exercise-books, uniforms are mandatory).
All the other children, who go back home to their villages in the morning,
are given supper as soon as they arrive in the evening and breakfast in
the morning, before they leave at dawn.
Adopted children are also given medical treatment through a convention
with Lacor Hospital, one of the hospitals in Gulu, run by Italian doctors.
Even a few small families have been included in the long distance adoption
program. They are women with sorrowful stories due to the war, and their
children. Many of these women were kidnapped when they were very young
(some were no older than 6) and forced to endure all sorts of violence.
They gave birth to their children during captivity, and were able to
escape only later on. Now they live at St. Monica Institute with their
children and a few orphans they take care of. The long distance adoptions
will assure them, as well, food, education, clothing, medical treatment
and registration.
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