A study by Anja Zeller was published as an open access paper by Wiley Periodicals

The study titled “A combi­na­tion of combat experi­ence, early abduc­tion, and severe trauma­ti­za­tion fuels appet­i­tive aggres­sion and violence among abductees of rebel war in North­ern Uganda“ by Anja Zeller examines the effects of traumatic experi­ences on people who have been victims of conflict or terror during their childhood.

The study aims to inves­ti­gate the inter­ac­tion between age at initial abduc­tion with that of traumatic load, and their influ­ence on appet­i­tive aggres­sion along with perpe­tra­tion of violent acts by former members of an armed rebel group of both sexes.

The study shows that appet­i­tive aggres­sion and the number of perpe­trated violent acts were specif­i­cally increased in individ­u­als who were abducted young, experi­enced several traumatic events in their lifetime, and with previ­ous combat experi­ence. For perpe­trated violence men showed increased levels whereas for appet­i­tive aggres­sion the associ­a­tion was indepen­dent of biolog­i­cal sex. There­fore, early abducted individ­u­als with a higher traumatic load, who have combat experi­ence, need to be given special inter­ven­tion to prevent any further violence.