A Child's Hell in the Lord's Resistance Army

Grace tells her story with passion but also with a kind of disassociation from the horrors that she as an unwilling child soldier witnessed and endured. She, too, had to kill people. She remembers being ordered to beat a little girl, taking a small stick and hitting the girl's legs. And because she was not hitting hard enough, one of the rebel commanders took a stick and hit Grace in the back of the head: "You know the soft part where it hurts." She blacked out. And when she came to, the little girl was already dead.

An Uneasy Sleep

Many children who live in northern Uganda leave their villages every night and commute to town centers in search of safe places to sleep. They have been called "Invisible Children." On April 29, people across the United States marched in a "Night Commute" to shed light on the plight of children in northern Uganda. In Washington, about 1,200 people camped in a plaza down the street from the Capitol. They crept on the ground, drew pictures and wrote letters to President Bush to ask the U.S. government to appoint a peace negotiator in Uganda.

"We are sleeping here because the kids in Uganda have to sleep outside because they fear being abducted by the rebels," said Bobby Bailey, 24, a filmmaker and co-founder of Invisible Children, a group organized to help children in Uganda. "Me and a few other guys went to northern Uganda in 2003 and made this movie. What we found inspired us to make a difference."

The documentary was made by three white kids from San Diego who went to Africa in search of a story -- any story. At first, like excited frat boys, they filmed themselves -- killing a snake emerging from its hole, getting sick, dancing, marveling at the African landscape. Then one night, they stumbled upon children sleeping in a town square. "We were going to Sudan because of the genocide," says Bailey, "but our host took us to a refugee camp in northern Uganda. Then a vehicle gets bombed in front of us. We say, 'What's going on?' She says we are in the middle of a war. We say, 'What war?' Then she took us to the city and we saw thousands of kids sleeping, lying down with blankets without their parents."

Cameras rolling, they began asking the children questions. Why are you here?

One boy, maybe 10, his English like the clear, lyrical recitation of a horrible epic, told how his brother had been killed by the rebels. He began to sob. The camera remains trained on the child's face until intimacy becomes torment.

Stolen Children

Before she was abducted, Grace begged her father to send her to school, a privilege often reserved for boys in Uganda. She went to board at St. Mary's College, a convent run by Italian nuns in Aboke.

The school was an oasis in the midst of war -- during the day. At night, the students had to leave their beds to go into town to avoid being abducted by the rebels. When Sister Rachelle Fassera heard of rebel movements, she would warn the girls to get their blankets and head to the city center to sleep that night. "Every night, Sister would say, leave your books on your desk. Go to the dormitory and take only your blanket."

It was Independence Day. There were no classes. The girls were dancing. People were happy. Grace remembers someone saying, "Maybe this is the last time we will dance."

She remembers Sister Rachelle going out to find government soldiers to guard the dormitories that night. She returned with a promise of protection, but by midnight, no soldiers had arrived. The rebels attacked.

The rebels found the dormitory with the younger girls, and flashed lights through the windows. Grace remembers the beam freezing on the face of one girl, her eyes wide with fright. She heard a rebel shout: "They are there!"

The rebels demanded that the girls open the door, or they would throw bombs inside. One girl did, thinking it would give others a chance to escape.