"The people are not living, they are existing. They are next to dead", says Charles Uma, the chairman of Gulu's Disaster Preparedness Committee. Many thousands have lost their lives. But the greatest tragedy of the conflict is the impact it has had on the children of northern Uganda. Tens of thousands of children have been abducted by the rebels and forced into a new life as child soldier or sex-slave. "One day, two girls in my group tried to escape and were caught", says Jessica - abducted by rebels when she was just 9 years old. "The punishment for escaping was death and the rebels forced us to watch." Incredibly, Jessica is one of the lucky ones. With many children forced to kill and partake in cannibalism, elders struggle towards a solution. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Odama has seen 17 years of futile military conflict. He believes peace will not come from more gunmen, but from conversation. "Dialogue... The UN was founded to see that no war continues after the second world war. And no more people lost by war anymore."