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Last Saturday, while most citizens of Denver were only just starting their day, over one hundred people-30 of them DU students-gathered in City Park. They were there for the Gulu Walk-a 12K walk sponsored by Friends for Peace in Africa. The walk was intended to raise awareness of the growing problems in Uganda.The civil war has been ripping Uganda apart for the past 19 years. The one group affected the most have been the children living there. According to Amnesty International, as many as 40,000 children walk as far as 12K miles to the town of Gulu, in order to escape abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army. These children leave their homes each night, stay in Gulu and walk back home the next day. On Saturday, participants walked the same distance in order to show support for the “night commuters” and to raise awareness as well.Children are the easiest targets for the LRA. It is estimated that in the past 19 years, as many as 30,000 children have been abducted and used as either child-soldiers or as sex slaves.When asked why she participated in the walk, DU freshman Anna Sun said “Everyone deserves basic human rights. These children do not deserve to be abducted like this. I walk to spread awareness and show support for the kids.”Awareness should not stop at the Gulu Walk. There are a number of Web sites dedicated to helping these children, including www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org, where printable petitions and letters to send to government officials can be found.

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