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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
UGANDA: Remaining former LRA combatants return home
NAIROBI, 11 July 2003 (IRIN) - The final 50 former combatants with the Lord's Resistance Army, who registered in Kenya with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to benefit from the Ugandan Amnesty Act, are to return home on Saturday.
Since the registrations took place in January and February, 246 former combatants have gone home, including 103 women and 73 children, IOM's regional project development officer, Charles Kwenin, told IRIN.
The group leaving on Saturday will return to Mbale in eastern Uganda, and Gulu in the north, where they will be able to take advantage of two-week training courses in carpentry, joinery, metal fabrication and installation, tailoring, baking and beauty care, he said.
A total of 930 people registered for the amnesty in Kenya, in the mistaken belief that they would be given financial benefits, Kwenin said, but the majority were found to be economic migrants and not former combatants.
The Ugandan Amnesty Act, signed in January 2000, provides for an amnesty to Ugandan nationals involved in "acts of a warlike nature".
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
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