The Independent, 15 September 2006:

Uganda Rebels Tell Of Army Atrocities As Victims Call For Justice

By Steve Bloomfield in Gulu, Uganda

"On a clear summer's morning, with the sun beating down on the dirt-red tracks, 12-year-old Jennifer, her older sister and her mother were walking home. They had been tending to their small patch of land, just beyond the borders of the camp set up by the government to protect civilians from attacks by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.

Two soldiers appeared from behind a bush. They took the girls and their mother to a secluded spot before forcing the children to undress. Then, with their mother looking on, the soldiers raped the girls. Once they had finished, the soldiers swapped.

The Acholi people in northern Uganda have had their lives destroyed by 20 years of brutal civil war. The crimes of the LRA have been well documented. Their leaders, including the self-proclaimed "spirit guide", Joseph Kony, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. But the men who raped Jennifer and Evelyn were not in the LRA. They were the UDPF - the government army sent to the camps to protect people from the LRA.