Abducted school girls, Boko Haram and Kony

It was some time ago, when I wrote up the story of Apolonia, my Sudanese friend, that I first came across the name Kony and the Lord's Liberation Army. 'We saw that the Lord’s Resistance army (LRA rebels) came running towards us.' Apolonia told me. 'The LRA was a sectarian religious and military group operating in Northern Uganda from bases in Southern Sudan. The LRA was renowned for killing, torturing, maiming, raping its victims, abducting large numbers of civilians, and virtually enslaving numerous children.' Kony has a price on his head. For many years there were attempts to capture him, but he escaped capture to this day. He may be in the Republic of Congo or anywhere else in the vast lands in the neighbourhood of Uganda.  Now Boko Haram abducted 270 girls in Northern Nigeria, half a continent away from Uganda and Southern Sudan, where Kony operated. Boko Haram practice a form of fundamental Islam, the LRA practised a weird cocktail of Christianity and Achioli tribal beliefs, but the end results are the same, children get abducted, children are used in a conflict they are not part of. Perhaps we need to look at our media and our political and military priorities. Do we dismiss these incidents as 'This is Africa, what do you expect?' 'These are simple primitive people, such abductions are part of the way they live?' Such an attitude must be unacceptable. We, and the media in particular, need to understand Africa, an African mentality, empathize with their plight and care. Above all, we must care with all our might.