The threat posed by the violent LRA rebels in Uganda is so great that thousands of children join a nightly exodus. They leave their remote village homes just to avoid being kidnapped.
Known as the "nightwalkers," they walk—some for as long as two hours a night—to camps run by the Ugandan government and non-governmental organizations. Once there, the children agree to be locked in a cage and guarded from the marauding LRA. In the morning, the children return to their homes and work in the fields.
This nightly journey is so perilous that Lisa was warned that her safety could not be guaranteed if she joined them. At the facility she visited, Lisa saw 6,000 children locked in cages for their own safety. "The fact that these kids are running for their lives every single night is just unfathomable," she says. "This shouldn't be happening to children."
Published 04/26/2006
