An Interview with LRA Escapees
“We were in school before. It was our 6th year. Everything was fine.” For the last four years, Camille Marie-Regnault, Invisible Children’s Protection Programs Officer, has worked with our teams in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and eastern Central African Republic (CAR) to ensure that communities in the region have the safety they need […]
LRA Crisis Tracker Report Indicates Kony May Be Rebuilding
This week we released our newest LRA Crisis Tracker report together with our partners at The Resolve LRA Crisis Initiative. The Midyear 2016 Security Brief highlights key trends in the movements and tactics of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) so far this year. CLICK HERE TO READ THE MIDYEAR 2016 SECURITY BRIEF The […]
AMPLIFYING VOICES: THE GENOCIDE AND ATROCITIES PREVENTION ACT
We at Invisible Children live by the belief that our liberty is bound together; that none of us is free unless we are all free. We are led by a vision for a world in which all communities have the protection they deserve and the ability to thrive, free from violence and mass atrocities. However, […]
FLASH ALERT: LRA RELEASES 12 WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND COULD FREE MORE
On the morning of June 8th, an LRA group based in DR Congo released 12 women and children captives to one of Invisible Children’s community partners, with a message that they want to release more. WE HAVE ROUGHLY 72 HOURS TO MAKE THAT POSSIBLE. DONATE TODAY TO HELP BRING MORE LRA CAPTIVES HOME. While traveling […]
Reblog // Army: Messaging leads to mass defections from Kony
October 2014 Over the summer, defections and releases from the LRA skyrocketed. Almost 100 men, women and children returned home – the most we’ve seen since we expanded our central Africa programs in 2008. The “why” behind those incredible numbers? Successful defection messaging, according to a recent article from Army Times. And we have to agree. […]
BBC World Service // LRA releases record numbers
Listen to the interview here: This morning, our CEO Ben Keesey and formerly abducted LRA child soldier Ocitti David Okech talked to BBC World Service about the major increase of LRA escapes over the past few months and how Invisible Children is capitalizing on this to get more LRA abductees out. To support the life-saving work Ben and […]
Escape from war // Impact of “come home” messaging
Sometimes, people assume that force is the most effective way to end a war, but this is not necessarily the case. Recent reports from our counter-LRA partners have suggested that the most cost-effective and nonviolent way to end LRA violence is in fact to invest in helping its members to escape. Of course, this is no easy […]
On the Radar: Four Ugandans escape the LRA in CAR // Male defector corroborates unconfirmed Odhiambo reports—Feb. 9th
The Incident: On February 9th two men were hunting just north of the town of Mboki in southeastern CAR when they were approached by a group of four LRA including one man, two women, and a six-year-old child. The LRA handed the hunters a letter, written in Luo (the language spoken by Acholi in northern Uganda), and […]
Recording Messages of Hope and Home
John B. “Lacambel” Oryema has become something of a household figure in northern Uganda, especially when it comes to the role radio plays in encouraging and facilitating the peaceful surrender of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) combatants. In fact, he’s a household figure in name and in voice, as the host of the radio program “Dwog Paco,” […]
An update from our team in Central African Republic
The following post was written by Sébastien Porter, Invisible Children’s Project Officer in Central African Republic. Last month, Invisible Children CAR staff was dispersed all over the Central African Republic (CAR) making things happen. Guillaume Cailleaux, Project Coordinator, and Sébastien Porter, Project Officer, met with Invisible Children’s Regional Ambassador Jolly Okot, in Bangui, Central African Republic. […]