Kony Kills Student, Teacher in Kitgum
New Vision (Kampala)
February 17, 2003
Posted to the web February 17, 2003
Kampala
KAMPALA, Sunday - Five people, including a teacher, a student were killed when suspected Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels raided the town of Kitgum in northern Uganda early on Sunday, an official said.
"The rebels raided quarters in my neighbourhood from the south, before breaking into shops to loot merchandise under heavy shooting," resident district commissioner, Lt. Santo Okot Lapolo told AFP by telephone from Kitgum town. "A teacher and a student were shot dead, while another old woman who is my neighbour, died of shock following the heavy shooting 500 metres away," Lapolo said.
"We have confirmed that two rebels were also killed, but their colleagues retreated, along with their bodies, as our forces came in to calm the situation," he added.
Church officials in the north of the country said Kitgum had been the scene of daily raids by LRA rebels lately, mainly to loot and abduct people.
The LRA has been fighting since 1988 to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni's secular government, ostensibly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
But their campaign has been marked by atrocities and violence against the civilian population, displacing more than 800,000 of them and forcing them to live in squalid camps around the region with little to feed on.
The insurgency intensified after a two-year lull in March when Uganda deployed troops in southern Sudan, with a nod from Khartoum, allowing Kampala to search and destroy rebel groups operating rear bases there.
The rebels instead fled towards the Ugandan border and re-entered northern Uganda to resume their latest campaign of terror.
AFP
