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Urgent message from IRC Board of Directors Co-Chairs, Alan R. Batkin and Jonathan L. Wiesner

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

We need your help: we have just returned from Northern Uganda and are stunned by what we saw. In all of our years of visiting IRC programs, the stark living conditions of people languishing in the dreary camps in Northern Uganda are among of some of the harshest we’ve ever seen.

Yet this little-known crisis is barely receiving the sustained attention it deserves by our policy makers. We want to change that. You can help us by signing a petition we are launching right now.

For over 20 years the rebel group, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has waged a brutal war against the Government of Uganda. The ruthless fighters in this conflict have resorted to barbaric tactics of murder, mutilation, burning of villages, sexual enslavement, and abduction of civilians – especially children – to be forced to fight.

Over 90% of the rural population of Northern Uganda has been forced into 200 squalid, crowded, and unhealthy refugee camps.

  • More than 1.5 million people are currently crammed into crowded camps
  • 30,000 children have been abducted as sexual slaves, porters, or fighters over the past 20 years
  • Each week there is an estimated excess death toll of 900 civilians due to disease and 20 people die each day due to violence
  • Rape and sexual abuse are a daily occurrence in camps

We are asking you to join us and sign this petition demanding that the U.S. government intensify their political action to stop the violence in Uganda and support the current peace talks in Juba, south Sudan.

Here is why signing this petition now will make a difference:

On October 9-10 in Washington, DC there will be a Northern Uganda Lobby Day. This is our chance to make our voices heard. We are aiming for 10,000 signatures on this petition. IRC staff will then hand-deliver copies of the petition to each of the Senate and House members that we visit on those days.

IRC has a long established presence in Northern Uganda delivering lifesaving aid and hope to tens of thousands of Ugandans. As a result IRC is a considered a credible and authoritative advocate in Washington, DC – but we want to be able to show that we are also speaking for thousands of concerned Americans as well.

We can’t thank you enough for supporting the people of Northern Uganda by signing this petition right now.

Sincerely,

- Alan R. Batkin   - Jonathan L. Wiesner

P.S. Please forward this link to your friends and colleagues and ask them to join us:

http://ga3.org/campaign/uganda_petition



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