Since taking up my duties as the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator I have pointed out that I will use my office to highlight the suffering of vulnerable people across the world and to ensure a speedy and adequate humanitarian response to their pleas.

In a world that is moving ever closer together, we must not allow any of these voices to go unheard or any humanitarian crisis to be forgotten.

The long yet often overlooked conflict in Northern Uganda is one such example. Despite great strides in fighting HIV/AIDS and revitalizing the economy, Uganda has not succeeded in finding a solution to this tragedy.

The conflict in Northern Uganda is characterised by a level of cruelty seldom seen elsewhere. It pits not just adults but also children against one another, and excludes vast swathes of the population from participation in any semblance of development. No one knows how many people have died as a result of the conflict, but every day schools, homes, villages and families are destroyed, yet more people are abducted, enslaved, beaten, raped, and made to fight for the rebels. Most of these abductees are children.

Look into the eyes of a child who has been repeatedly brutalised, tortured or raped, as I did when I visited Northern Uganda, and you will never forget what you find there. This abuse of children is one of the most serious in the world. It calls for urgent and concerted action.

The international community has shown an increasing understanding of, and concern for, the suffering of the people of Northern Uganda. Its assistance continues to be instrumental in addressing some of the overwhelming humanitarian needs of those afflicted by displacement, disease and disability. Yet the traumatic nightmare of the people remains, haunting hundreds of thousands, sowing bitterness and destroying their future. Much more material assistance is required. An even greater requirement is the peaceful solution of the conflict in Northern Uganda. The nature of the conflict, its protracted duration and, above all, the punitive and extremely harsh toll it has imposed on the children, on the entire population, urges the need for a negotiated settlement, which, I believe, is the only possible solution.

The current publication "When the sun sets, we start to worry€" tries to help the world better understand this conflict by capturing the pictures and stories of those most affected by the endless cycle of suffering.

From girls abducted from dormitory beds and forced to become "wives", to boys made to club other children to death, to parents who have no news of their children taken away so long ago, the stories told by the photos and by the victims themselves are of a population in despair. The world owes them better, for the sake of peace and for the sake of humanity. They cannot and should not be abandoned.

Jan Egeland
UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and
Emergency Relief Coordinator