Kampala — ABDUCTIONS, torture, recruitment of child soldiers and other abuses have sharply increased in the past year due to renewed fighting between the UPDF and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.

This is contained in a report compiled by national and international NGOs to be released today.

The 73-page report titled "Abducted and Abused: Renewed War in Northern Uganda" details how an increase in human rights abuses has caused a humanitarian crisis.

The report says the UPDF has committed torture, rape, underage recruitment and arbitrary detention.

It accuses the Government of increasing the suffering of northern Uganda's population through the forced displacement of civilians into IDP camps, "which have little or no protection."

It claims UPDF soldiers and other government forces accused by civilians of serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape often escape trial or sanction, creating the public perception of impunity.

The LRA has since June 2002 abducted close to 8,400 children and thousands more adults, a sharp rise from 2001, the report says.

It said the renewed conflict is taking its highest toll ever, with about 20,000 children escaping each night into Gulu and other towns for fear of abduction.

The NGOs said, "These children sleep on verandas, on church grounds and at local hospitals, returning home each morning, becoming locally known as "night commuters."

The LRA has escalated the insurgency by targeting religious leaders, aid providers and the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps.

"Child abduction, murder and mutilation are the signatures of the LRA in this war," said Lloyd Axworthy, a former Canadian minister for external affairs.

Axworthy is the chief executive of the Liu Institute for Global Issues in Canada, which, together with the Peace and Human Rights Centre in Kampala, Human Rights Focus in Gulu, and Human Rights Watch in New York, issued the report.

Close to 800,000 people (about 70% of the people in Gulu, Pader and Kitgum) are internally displaced due to LRA attacks and Government orders, the groups said. But the Army spokesman, Maj. Shaban Bantariza, dismissed the report as the work of those bent on mobilising for the LRA. The groups urged the UN to appoint a special representative for northern Uganda.