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, the largest urban centre in Northern Uganda. The geographical coordinates of Aboke are:02°21'28.0"N, 32°40'59.0"E. 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: Akwiridid Apach Apuru Ogwangacuma and Opeta. The town is also the location of St. Mary's College Aboke Girls School, a residential girls-only secondary school administered by Italian 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 rebel group which started in January 1987 by Joseph Kony, began as a liberation group aimed at removing the National Resistance Movement led by Yoweri Museveni from power. In the early 1990s the LRA began to receive support and supplies from the government of Sudan 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, in the DR Congo. She arrived at a UPDF base in Dungu, DRC, in March 2009.
