Nairobi, Feb. 10 -- Young Peter Oloya was abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Northern Uganda and conscripted into its ranks as a child soldier.

Oloya was only 11 in 1994, when the rebels descended on Lemo Bongolewich village in Kitgum district and took him together with his mother, maternal auntie and her baby, and his cousin as they harvested sweet potatoes and sim sim in their garden at home.

The family had sought refuge at the Kitgum Catholic Mission internally displaced people's camp and ran out of food so they went home to harvest their crops.

Six months into captivity Oloya was given a gun to guard their rebel camp and watch over the new abductees. He and his cousin escaped from captivity after one year and ei...