Kampala — Adinolfi, who recently visited northern Uganda, said the abduction of thousands of children by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was one of the most serious basic human rights violations that called for the strongest national and international condemnation.

She said the abductions had forced more than 15,000 children and their mothers to commute every night to nearby urban centres like Gulu and Kitgum to escape possible LRA attacks. "These children are forced to spend the night in the open in the compounds of hospitals, bus stations, or wherever they find free space. Nowhere else in the world would this be acceptable," she said.

She urged the parties to seek a political solution to the crisis and called for greater "awareness" of the complex cross border nature of the conflict. "The reality of the situation on the ground is that the attempts for a military solution have not been successful, therefore it is a continuous obligation to seek innovative ways to strive for peace," Adinolfi said.

Adinolfi's visit to northern Uganda was aimed at focusing international attention on the plight of children in the conflict, an ECHO statement said. It came against the backdrop of a resolution passed on 3 July by the EU parliament strongly condemning the human rights violations against civilians and urging the parties to engage constructively in the current peace initiatives.

The resolution also called on the African Union to examine "all possible ways" of contributing to the protection of civilians, including taking measures against African states which supply the LRA with weapons.

The EU, through ECHO, had increased its budget for Uganda this year to US $6.7 million to improve humanitarian services for an estimated 800,000 displaced people, in addition to US $4.5 million for the provision of food aid, ECHO said.

The agency said it was also funding projects aimed at rehabilitating ex-child soldiers who had managed to escape from the LRA, and reintegrating them into their communities.