WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Children were forced into sexual slavery or used as soldiers by the Lord's Resistance Army in the Central African Republic last year, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch said it discovered through independent interviews that the Lord's Resistance Army abducted nearly 700 people in the Central African Republic and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past 18 months.
Nearly 30 percent of those were children who were forced into sexual slavery or forced to serve as soldiers, the group said.
Human Rights Watch said the LRA killed many of the people who tried to escape abduction by crushing their skulls. Captured children were forced to kill other children and adults.
Anneke van Woudenberg, a researcher on Africa for Human Rights Watch, said LRA leader Joseph Kony was responsible for the violent campaign.
"The LRA continues its horrific campaign to replenish its ranks by brutally tearing children from their villages and forcing them to fight," said van Woudenberg.
Kony was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005 on more than 30 counts of violations of international law, including war crimes.
Human Rights Watch said as many as 20,000 people in the Central African Republic have fled the violence. The government has deployed only 200 troops to the area and U.N. peacekeepers in northeast Congo have only 1,000 in the area where the LRA campaign is surging.
"National governments, the Ugandan army and the U.N. need to take urgent steps to protect people from these LRA attacks," said Van Woudenberg.
