Aboke is a town in the
Kole District
Kole District is a district in Northern Uganda. Like most other Ugandan districts, it is named after its 'chief town', Kole, where the district headquarters are located.
Location
Kole District is bordered by Lira District to the east, Apac Di ...
of the
Northern Region of
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
. It was the location of the
Aboke abductions, in October 1996.
Location
Aboke is located in ''Akwiridid Parish'', Aboke sub-county, Kole District, in the
Lango sub-region, in Northern Uganda. It is approximately , by road, north-west of the city of
Lira, the largest urban centre in the sub-region.
This is approximately , by road, southeast of the city of
Gulu
Gulu is a city in the Northern Region of Uganda. It is the commercial and administrative centre of Gulu District.
The coordinates of the city of Gulu are 2°46'54.0"N 32°17'57.0"E. The distance from Gulu to Kampala, Uganda's capital and larg ...
, the largest urban centre in Northern Uganda.
The geographical coordinates of Aboke are:02°21'28.0"N, 32°40'59.0"E (Latitude:2.357778; Longitude:32.683056).
Aboke sits at an average elevation of above sea level.
Overview
Aboke lies on the old Lira-Gulu Road, just north of the ''Okole River''. The town is the location of the five-parish ''Aboke sub-county''. The parishes in Aboke sub-county are: (a) Akwiridid (b) Apach (c) Apuru (d) Ogwangacuma and (e) Opeta.
The town is also the location of ''St. Mary's College Aboke Girls School'', a residential girls-only secondary school administered by
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
nuns. It is at this school that the
Aboke abductions occurred on the early morning of 10 October 1996.
Aboke abductions
The
Lord's Resistance Army
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), also known as the Lord's Resistance Movement, is a rebel group and heterodox Christian group which operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the ...
(LRA), the rebel group which started in January 1987 by
Joseph Kony
Joseph Rao Kony (likely born 1961) is a Ugandan militant who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist organization, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union and variou ...
, began as a liberation group aimed at removing the
National Resistance Movement
The National Resistance Movement ( sw, Harakati za Upinzani za Kitaifa; abbr. NRM) has been the ruling party in Uganda since 1986.
History
The National Resistance Movement (NRM) was founded as a liberation movement that waged a guerrilla ...
led by
Yoweri Museveni
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa (born 15 September 1944) is a Ugandan politician and retired senior military officer who has been the 9th and current President of Uganda since 26 January 1986. Museveni spearheaded rebellions with aid of then ...
from power.
In the early 1990s the LRA began to receive support and supplies from the
government of Sudan
Government of Sudan is the federal provisional government created by the constitution of Sudan having the executive, parliament, and the judiciary. Previously, a ''president'' was head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of t ...
at that time. The character of the LRA changed. The rebels began to target civilians, mutilating those they thought to be government sympathisers and abducting children as child soldiers and sex slaves.
In the early morning hours of 10 October 1996, an estimated 300 rebels of the LRA invaded St Mary’s College Secondary School Aboke and abducted 139 young girls aged 13 to 16 years of age. Sister Rachele Frassera, an Italian nun, who was the deputy headmistress at the school, followed the rebels and negotiated the release of 109 girls. The rebels kept the other 30 as sex slaves for their commanders.
Four of the girls died in captivity while the remaining 26 eventually escaped from Sudan, back to their families in Uganda. Many had babies fathered by the rebels, including Joseph Kony himself. The girl to escape was Catherine Ajok, who on 14 December 2008, escaped from the LRA when the
UPDF bombed the LRA base in
Garamba
Garamba National Park is a nearly national park in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is among Africa's oldest parks, and was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980 for its protection of critical habitat for norther ...
, in the
DR Congo. She arrived at a UPDF base in Dungu, DRC, in March 2009.
See also
*
Langi people
The Lango are a Nilo- Hamitic ethnic group of the Ateker peoples. They live in north-central Uganda, in a region that covers the area formerly known as the Lango District until 1974, when it was split into the districts of Apac and Lira, an ...
*
List of cities and towns in Uganda
*
List of roads in Uganda
The following is a list of the national roads in Uganda, which are under the jurisdiction of the Uganda National Roads Authority. The list is not exhaustive.
National roads
See also
* Economy of Uganda
* Transport in Uganda
*Kinshasa Highway ...
References
External links
Former Aboke Students In Fundraising DriveAs of 11 October 2016.
{{coord, 03, 28, 26, N, 32, 04, 04, E, region:UG_type:city, display=title
Kole District
Populated places in Northern Region, Uganda
Cities in the Great Rift Valley
Lango sub-region