United Nations, Nov 17, SPA -- The U.N. Security Council on Thursday welcomed efforts to end the 20-year war in northern Uganda between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that has killed 100,000 people in the region. “The Security Council demands that the LRA immediately release all women, children, and other non-combatants … and that the peace process be concluded expeditiously,” the council said in a statement read by Ambassador Jorge Voto-Bernales of Peru, the Security Council president for November. The council welcomed the cease-fire that was reached between the government and the LRA in August and renewed at the beginning of this month, and hoped that there would be longer-term measures, including any diplomatic help from member states, to end the conflict. The Security Council also welcomed the plan by the Ugandan government to tackle humanitarian issues in northern Uganda, and said it looks forward to further progress on improving the living conditions for civilians there, the Associated Press reported. Millions of people live in internally displaced camps in northern Uganda as a result of the fighting between the LRA and the government. The LRA and the government are guilty of using children to fight and to serve as porters in the war, often abducting them from villages. --SPA www.spa.gov.sa/403840