The Washington Post today published an article about the plight of former child soldiers in northern Uganda and ongoing efforts to reintegrate those children into their communities once they escape from the LRA. The article highlights the work of the Children of War Rehabilitation Center, which was started after a young girl escaped from Joseph Kony's rebel army and returned to her family, only to kill her mother, thinking she was being attacked during the night. This incident and others like it revealed to community leaders the need for rehabilitation and therapy for former child soldiers.

The article cites a 2004 study that found that of the thousands of children who have escaped the LRA many return home "[suffering] post traumatic stress disorder, having witnessed brutal killings --sometimes of a parent or sibling-- or having been raped, beaten, deprived of water and food or forced to kill." Christine Oroma, a counselor at the Rehabilitation Center, is quoted as saying, "We have suffered for so many years now. How come no one has come to help us?"

The article also points out that despite being Africa's longest running war, the conflict in northern Uganda has received very little international attention. Rev. Carlos Rodriguez, executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission, an international body backed by religious groups that monitors and documents human rights abuses in northern Uganda, partially blames the lack of attention on the fact that the region has no significant resources, as opposed to oil-rich Sudan, and the international community's desire to preserve Uganda's reputation as an African success story. "The thing to remember is that there are two Ugandas," Rodriguez said. "One of relative peace, and then one where children suffer more than in any country on Earth." Read more here.