Rebels Burn 600 Huts in Katakwi
The Monitor (Kampala)
July 29, 2003
Posted to the web July 29, 2003
Patrick Elobu Angonu
Kampala
Rebels on Sunday burnt 580 huts at Achowa displaced people's camp in Katakwi before abducting 169 people.
This is the second attack on Achowa in as many days and it comes shortly after the First Deputy Prime Minister, Lt. Gen. Moses Ali, visited the camp.
Ali is also the minister of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees.
It follows another attack, on Saturday morning, on Old Achowa parish where the Lord's Resistance Army rebels burnt five huts and killed five people, two of them members of the Arrow Group militia.
"After the Arrow Boys gave them a thorough beating at Old Achowa the LRA regrouped and struck Achowa on Sunday afternoon," the Katakwi RDC, Mr Ndiwa Chemasuet, said yesterday.
He said that two LRA rebels were also killed.
Chemasuet said the rebels had burnt 180 huts and not 580 as the local civilian sources had claimed.
Displaced people from Katakwi are meanwhile still arriving in Soroti town.
The Christian Children's Fund field administrator, Ms Helen Aguti, said that their Achowa IDP camp office also came under attack.
"They vandalised all the movable property they found in the compound and also smashed all the glasses in the windows," a tearful Aguti said.
The LRA last month attacked another NGO, Concern Worldwide's offices, and emptied its stores of up to 5.6 tons of food.
Clarification
Orungo is found in Katakwi district and not in Kumi as stated in our special report, When The Rebels Attacked Lwala; The Students' Story, that appeared in yesterday's issue.
