Rescue Rallies to be held across Florida and world tomorrow

April 24, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Every day children in Northern Uganda live in fear of being abducted and forced to live among violent rebels.

On Saturday, Floridians will gather in Tallahassee, Orlando and Miami as part of awareness-raising rallies in 60 cities worldwide sponsored by the nonprofit group, Invisible Children.  The group is associated with the documentary "Invisible Children: Rough Cut," a film that exposes the tragic realities of northern Uganda’s night commuters and child soldiers.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson has written a letter to be read at the rallies.  In 2007, Nelson cosponsored the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to encourage governments in Africa and throughout the world to disarm, demobilize and rehabilitate child soldiers who are sent into combat and who serve as human mine detectors and sex slaves. 

“We cannot rest until the war in northern Uganda is brought to an end,” Sen. Nelson said. “I pray that peace is in sight.”

Nelson visited Uganda during a trip to Central Africa in July 2008 to learn firsthand about the political situation and what the U.S. government was doing to help.  The Lord’s Resistance Army still refuses to sign the agreement drafted in Juba, Southern Sudan, to bring an end to the fighting.

Recently, the United States and other members of the UN Security Council have condemned the raids by the Lord’s Resistance Army and are urging UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo to protect civilians from further attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army.

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