The Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has killed at least 255 children and adults during an abduction campaign in the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In their largely unreported campaign about 700 people have been kidnapped in the past eighteen months.

This has been stated by Human Rights Watch in a statement on Thursday.

Nearly one-third of the abducted are children. Many are forced to serve as soldiers or are sexually abused by the LRA.

During their campaign the rebel group has killed children and adults who tried to flee or walked too slowly and were unable to bear the heavy loads they were forced to carry.

In 2005, the Ugandan army succeeded in driving the LRA out of the country. Now, the rebel group operates from the neighbouring border area between southern Sudan, DRC, and CAR.

Traumatised child witnesses who spoke to HRW described being forced to kill dozens of adults who reached an LRA camp in the DR Congo to prevent them from giving its location to government soldiers or the Ugandan army.

The report said that the military presence to fight the LRA in the DR Congo was short of what was needed in terms of transport and communications equipment, while in the CAR there were too few soldiers.

HRW urged the US government "to swiftly carry out the legislation signed by President Barack Obama on May 26 to develop a comprehensive strategy to protect civilians in Africa from LRA attacks" and bring LRA leaders to justice.

Earlier this year, HRW reported on the killings by the LRA in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

(Source: Human Rights Watch, ANP, AFP)