Mennonite Weekly Review

AKRON, Pa. — Angelina Atyam speaks from experience when describing the human toll of the long-running conflict in northern Uganda: her daughter, Charlotte, was abducted at the age of 14 and held captive for nearly eight years by a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Angelina Atyam, chair of the Concerned Parents Association, speaks about child abductions in northern Uganda with Renzo Pami, a staff person of Amnesty International, in New York City. — Photo by Doug Hostetter/MCC

Atyam tells how LRA soldiers raided her daughter’s Catholic boarding school at night and abducted 139 girls, most of whom were in their early teens. An Italian nun and a Ugandan teacher raced after the rebels and pleaded with an LRA commander to release the girls. He agreed to free 109 girls but kept 30 as captives, and Charlotte was among them.

Charlotte’s abduction in 1996 transformed Atyam, a nurse- midwife and mother of six, into an international advocate for children in northern Uganda. Her family’s experiences are part of a national tragedy: For more than a decade, the LRA abducted tens of thousands of Ugandan children to serve as soldiers, forced laborers and so-called wives to LRA commanders.

Mennonite Central Committee supports an organization that Atyam helped found, the Concerned Parents Association, to assist families affected by child abductions and bring international attention to their plight.

MCC provides the Concerned Parents Association with financial support. Two MCC workers, Ben and Holly Porter of Denver, have served as technical advisers to the organization over the past three years.

MCC sponsored Atyam to speak in churches and other venues in Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, attend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University and meet with representatives of human rights organizations and aid agencies in Washington, D.C., and New York City in April, May and June.

Atyam spoke at the Central Africa Policy Forum in New York about the need for a peaceful resolution to Uganda’s conflict with the LRA. While the LRA has withdrawn to remote areas of Congo, hundreds of young people are believed to remain in captivity with the LRA, and it continues to be seen as a threat by Uganda and neighboring countries. According to a Ugandan newspaper, governments in the region are considering a military strike against the LRA.

However, Atyam opposes attacks on the LRA because the group includes many people who were abducted as children.

“Let us think about forgiving,” Atyam said. “Because if we don’t forgive these rebels, we are signing the death warrants of our own children.”

Kirk Harris, a program associate for MCC’s United Nations Liaison Office, said he thinks Atyam’s message was well received by humanitarian organizations that lobby the U.N.