By Patrick Ebong & Sylvester Onyang
Nov 19, 2003
KAMPALA - Rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army have killed 34 people in Lira. The rebels also abducted some children on Monday night.
Residents said the rebels attacked Anyangpuch and Adekokwok villages in Adwari parish, 5km north of Lira town.
The rebels beat up people and looted household property. Seventeen people abducted from Adwari were hacked to death at Ngeta near the National Teachers Training College.
Second Lt. Chris Magezi, the 5th Division spokesman, said yesterday that the army has been deployed to counter the rebels believed to have crossed into Pader district.
Some of people who died in the Monday attack are Ferdinand Amuku, Okello Abal, Ogwang, Ariong and Peter Ayok, killed together with his brother Yuventos Koni. The rebels cut the deceased's bodies to pieces, making it difficult to identify many of the dead.
The victims were yesterday buried in a mass grave. Some of the injured admitted to Lira Hospital are Mr Raymond Apita, Mr Isaac Olero and Mr Lawrence Ocen. In an earlier attack, the rebels on Sunday killed 17 people in Orum sub-county in Otuke, Lira district.
Local MP Omara Atubo told MPs yesterday that rebels have blocked all the roads to Otuke.
Army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza yesterday confirmed the deaths.
He said the rebels killed 12 people on Monday on Lira- Kitgum road. He said the army is pursuing the killers.
"Only three of the people killed were from that village on the road to Kitgum. The rest were abducted from far away places," Bantariza said.
Achwera Achan, Okwiny Luckyano, Alfred Acan and Santos Okello are some of the people killed in the attack.
By yesterday afternoon hundreds of people were seen moving to Lira town. They were fleeing their villages.
Four bodies more bodies were recovered later in the day.
- Additional reporting by Lucy Lapoti
� 2003 The Monitor Publications
