Sprite-like and spirited, Grace Aciro flashes me a beaming smile that belies the horrors she has seen – abiding images of death and atrocities in her homeland of northern Uganda.

Sunderland is a world away from her native town of Gulu, where her earliest memory is of fierce warfare between the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and Government troops.

She grew up with her four sisters and three brothers in the church house – her father is a minister of the Church of Uganda – and in fear of being abducted by the rebels, or horrifically mutilated or murdered.

Now 23, Grace tells me of the terrible tortures she has seen meted out to men, women and children by the rebels.

In the serenity of St Gabriel's vicarage, where she is living while studying to be a youth worker at the University of Sunderland, and working with young people at the church and at Barnes Junior School, the horrors of war may be a million miles away but are etched in her memory forever.

She tells me: "My uncle got blown up with a landmine and they brought him to our house. I went to the hospital to visit him and when you go there you can't eat for a week.

"There were children and adults, people with their legs hanging off, others with their legs chopped off, ears, noses and mouths that had been chopped off. There was blood everywhere and the smell was terrible. I saw all that when I was 11. I saw one young boy of 16 or 17 near my home lying dead. There had been all this banging, firing and fighting and he was one of the rebels and had been killed.

"Another day there was a huge explosion and this vehicle had been blown up by a landmine. A lot of the people died and others ran and came to my house. They all died, all 12 people.

" I have seen people who have been tortured, children and men and women. They were all from my village. Some were beaten, others had their ears chopped off or mouth. A neighbour in her twenties had stepped on a landmine and they had to cut her legs off.

"What I have seen I can't compare it with what other kids have because one of my friends was abducted.

"The rebels came to the home of another friend. She was with her mother and they had these two guys with them and they killed the two men and chopped them into pieces and left a bag for my friend and her mother to pick up the pieces."

Millions of people have been affected during the 22-year war. Grace knows how amazing it is that she came to no harm and wasn't abducted like her friend. Grace says: " I don't know why. I just think God protected us. I didn't think I would see today. I didn't know what would happen or where I would be. I could have been abducted, killed, married off to a rebel and having his children now.

"There are times when the rebels would go to a village and kill hundreds of people and line them on the ground. I have been very lucky. I have only seen pictures of that. I have been extremely lucky that I didn't face them myself. If I had I don't know where I would be now. I only saw what they did."

Now with a fragile amnesty between the rebels and the Government, children abducted years ago are finding their way back to their homes.

But as Grace explains many of them are so traumatised they cannot return to normal living. World Vision and other organisations are helping those who have been trained to kill and are as she puts it "thirsty to kill."

Grace, who has worked with these young people at a Christian centre in Gulu, which is one of a number of non-Government organisations supporting abductees, adds: "The trauma that they have gone through drives them crazy. They can do nothing. From being eight or nine they have fought with guns.

"Some kids stayed for more than 10 years with the rebels, abducted when they were seven and now at 17 they are getting back into society but it is very difficult. They try to teach them craft work or carpentry and catering or tailoring for girls. They keep them together and try and help them mentally. They can't fit into society because of their trauma they have lost themselves so they try to work with them and help them stay sane, although they cannot fully do that.

"And the girls with rebels' babies they try to help them feel like human beings."

How has she coped? "I think because my faith has always helped me go through situations and the fact that I believe that God can make everything better and he can help us in whatever terrible situation we are going through and that's what helps me keep going."

Having been through and seen so much trauma, Grace has relied on her own inner strength. She's had no counselling for the horrors she has lived through – there is nothing like that in Uganda – and admits: "It's made me a little scared because when all these things were happening, in my heart I had this confidence within me whatever happens I am going to be able to smile. But I feel more terrified now.
It's because of the experience. If I hear a sharp noise my body just jumps like when fireworks go off. Any banging or screaming and I am terrified to death."

Traumatised children rebuilding their lives

It was the journey of Rita Alfred's life visiting World Vision's Children of War Centre in Gulu.

The senior communications officer with the charity is just back and says how totally "awe inspiring" it all was.

Rita talks of the traumatised children who have now escaped from the rebels and says: "These children have witnessed and committed horrendous things."

She tells me of a boy and girl she met - each had been forced by the rebels to mutilate the other: "They were made to torture each other. He was made to cut out her lips. That's how the LRA keep the abductees in fear of them.

" Through a process of rehabilitation and counselling and supporting both of these children they were able to forgive one another.

"I spoke to girls the age of my three daughters, who had been raped and maimed. A lot of the work we do is through art. Sometimes they can't talk because it is all so horrific so they draw out their feelings and sing and try and find some kind of peace. It showed how far they had come when they were able to speak about these things.

" They need to be rehabilitated by doing things normal children would, like taking part in ball games.

And it's something the centre is good at taking the children on their own journey. It's mainly a journey of learning to reconcile what they have done in the past, which was not of their making and being able to carry that through into a life they have some control over. This is where the strength of the work of the centre lies.

"Children who do manage to escape are living in a parallel universe, so affected by the conflict and of being abducted. Some were as young as four or five, in captivity and fighting for the LRA.

"I don't think anyone would think if you have been through that kind of thing you can come away and hope to live a normal life. That's where the triumph of the human spirit conquers everything else.

"It's tremendous the resilience of children. They are a lesson to us that we can start over. The children who pass through our centre we need to make them change to re-enter the community and be fully functioning and re-integrated with their family."

Rita explains how returning to their families is so very difficult, given many have been away 10 years or more. And they add to the economic stress, being another mouth to feed. That's why World Vision tries to equip the young men and women with skills to earn money.

The young bush brides with children to rebels and others heavily pregnant are among the saddest of sights and are taught parenting skills.

Rita says with peace a real possibility on the horizon, people are slowly either returning to their lands or beginning to re-work farm land which they had previously fled from – for fear of being either abducted or massacred by the LRA.

She says: "Everyone wants peace now. And they were talking about forgiveness. Peace can only come through forgiveness."

Hope for a peace that will last

Valentine was taken by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) at the age of eight. After being beaten and tortured, she received weapon training and was used as a household slave.

Once she reached puberty, the second-in-command of the rebels took her as his "wife". Her position gave her unusual access to the leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony.

Now, at 18, Valentine is secure in a World Vision rehabilitation centre for children of war, receiving care and counselling. She is trying to make sense of a ruined childhood.

"He lifted me up, grabbed my hands, and demanded to know why I'd run from him," she says. "Then he carried me back home. They put me with my mother and they started stabbing her with the bayonet on a rifle. They kept stabbing her until she fell unconscious, with my baby brother on her back. Then they stole all of our things, and left – with me."

The LRA are notorious for mutilating victims and kidnapping an estimated 30,000 children to be fighters, porters and sex slaves.

Twenty two years of fighting with the LRA has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted some two million people.

After enduring such brutal conflict, the people of northern Uganda are hopeful that at last peace is in sight.

In February this year, the Ugandan Government and the LRA signed a permanent ceasefire, signalling that the country's civil war may be close to an end.

Christian humanitarian group, World Vision praised the step toward an official end to the war.

"We are overjoyed at the real possibility for an end to this horrific war," said Rory Anderson, deputy director of advocacy and government relations at World Vision.

"We have been advocating for years for an end to this war. Our field staff have tirelessly devoted more than a decade to serve those whose lives have been devastated by it."

However, significant challenges remain even after the ceasefire agreement was signed. LRA leader Joseph Kony and his leaders' compliance with the peace agreement will be vital for its success.

"At this point, the ceasefire is simply a piece of paper," Anderson said. "It's a crucial piece of paper, but peace can only be real if the U.S. and the international community remain engaged to make sure that this agreement is fully implemented.

"Joseph Kony is incredibly unpredictable. We must remain vigilant to ensure that the resources and political will are invested in making peace a reality."

Nearly two million people have been displaced by the conflict and into squalid, overcrowded displacement camps.

Helping them return to their villages and rebuild their lives and communities will require international as well as Ugandan funding and political will.