Massacres and kidnappings continue.

Kampala -- At the conclusion of a meeting on March 2, 2004, religious leaders of the Acholi, Lango, and Teso ethnic groups appealed to Uganda's government to declare the north a disaster area and to ask for international help to end the fighting.

Massacres in the refugee camps of Aiba and Barlonyo perpetrated by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) on February 4 and 22 left 300 dead. Directed by Sudanese-backed Joseph Kony, the LRA has fought against the Ugandan government since 1986. The death-toll is estimated at more than 120,000. More than 25,000 children have been kidnapped and forced into slavery or military service.

At the United Nations it was reported that governments in the third world and aid agencies are failing to protect girls in war zones. In 27 countries, girls have even been abducted into fighting forces, usually as teens, sometimes younger. The girls are forced to engage in violent, extreme actions, with the added violation that they are often raped by other fighters or forced to serve as "wives" to commanders.

After conflicts end, the young women--and in some cases their children by captors--find difficulty returning to their communities. Governments in the conflict countries often play down the plight of abducted girls, in part to hide their own complicity in the conscription of underage boys and girls.

Kitgum -- On a visit to northern Uganda, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, said he was "horrified and shocked" at the widespread poverty, suffering and fear he saw in the war-torn area.

However, the Cardinal did not fail to note the good conditions of the hospital structures despite the poverty and the violence of the Lord's Resistance Army, which has tormented the local population for 18 years (Zenit, March 8, 25; Globe, March 14, 2004).