UN returns kidnapped Ugandans from Sudan

More than sixty Ugandans abducted as schoolchildren by armed rebels have been flown home after escaping from their captors.

They had been held by Ugandan rebels in southern Sudan.

Officials of the UN children's agency, UNICEF, who welcomed the former captives at Entebbe airport, said they were in good shape.

Those returning were all kidnapped in northern Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army, which used them for sex, forced labour or as soldiers.

Many had been held for several years and only twenty-four are still under eighteen.

A BBC correspondent in Uganda says the rebels use abductions as way of recruiting new members and have seized at least ten thousand children over the past six years. Hundreds have escaped and made their own way back.

But the returnees have not included former students of a girls secondary school at Apac, who were abducted in 1996.

Under a 1999 accord, Sudan is supposed to return all Ugandans kidnapped as children by the rebels.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service