The group moved back into Gulu District. The day after the abduction, a number of adolescent girls taken from Aboke village were released. Over the weeks that followed the group concentrated on abducting boys and youths. LRA child soldiers told G.O. this had been ordered by the spirit possessing Joseph Kony: "they said Tipu Maleng refused us to capture girls. Only the students from Aboke." In fact, testimony from other children in this group indicates that girls were being taken, but in smaller numbers than boys.

The LRA does not just abduct children. When there is a need for people to carry looted goods or ammunition, adults and older adolescents are also taken as forced labour. Once the raiding party has moved beyond danger of a confrontation with pursuing troops, which can be hours or days later depending on the circumstances, the adults who have survived the journey are sometimes released and the loads redistributed among the newly abducted children and existing child soldiers. In the early hours of 22 May 1997 a residential suburb of Gulu town was attacked by a group of rebels who looted houses and small shops before burning 88 homes. Twenty-three children and young male adults were abducted. A., a 25-year-old man, was one of those taken as a porter:

Induction: terrorizing children

Discipline within the LRA is maintained by extreme and often arbitrary violence. LRA commanders force captured children to take part in the almost ritualized killing of others very soon after their abduction. The intention appears to be to break down resistance to LRA authority, to destroy taboos about killing and to implicate the child in criminal acts. The effect is to terrorize children. For many former child soldiers interviewed by Amnesty International this appeared to be a defining moment in their involvement with the LRA. On 15 August 1996 15 year old J.O. from Gulu District was forced to kill a boy called Oyet, who he knew: