The LRA's second-in-command Vincent Otti has said the rebel group will not release children and women under their captivity. Otti said all those under captivity will come out with them after the signing of the final peace agreement between the LRA and the government. "Releasing children for what? Have they been in prison? The children we have here (bush) are ours. They were born in the bush," he said. However, the government has appealed to the rebels to release all people under their captivity against their will. Read more at The Monitor.

A report released yesterday by the University of California, Berkeley, and Tulane University provides new hard data on forced conscription into the LRA. "Our research shows that Kony and his henchmen abducted as many as 38,000 children and 37,000 adults into his rebel army over the past 11 years," said Eric Stover, coauthor of the report and faculty director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center. The Berkeley-Tulane report, "Abduction: The Lord's Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in Northern Uganda," could be made available to the court's Office of the Prosecutor if the rebel leaders are brought to trial, the researchers said. "One of our most alarming findings is that young women between the ages of 19 and 30 were held the longest in rebel captivity, averaging about four and a half years," the team said. Read more at UC Berkeley News.