BY ALI MAO IN LIRA
AND AGENCIES
A PEACEFUL demonstration against the massacre of 200 people in Lira over the weekend ended in the murder of five people in Lira district yesterday.
Two people were stoned to death when some Langi accused the Acholi community of making up the bulk of the LRA rebels, according to officials in Lira district hospital, AFP reported.
The demonstration was planned to protest the attack on Barlonyo internally displaced people�s camp on the weekend. Police shot dead two other people when a crowd attacked the police station accusing them of failing to provide security.
The body of one man, believed to be an Acholi, lay in a school compound with his head smashed.
Mobs set fire to several homes and a restaurant, all said to belong to Acholi, an AFP correspondent said.
�People are just showing anger,� said a Catholic priest, Sebat Ayala.
�In many of the camps people are in a hopeless situation. T
hey lack food, clothing and medicine,� he said of the thousands of residents forced to live in camps because of the insurgency.
The march had started with over 20,000 demonstrators calling for international intervention to end the violence in northern Uganda.
The crowd that waited from 8:00am became restive when no district official turned up by 10:00am and decided to �pull them out of their offices.�
The mob headed for the district headquarters on Obote Avenue. Noisy and sweating, the mob, with placards high in the air, demanded that the district officials lead the demonstration. �Wan omito kom RDC Opira� (We want RDC Opira) they chanted.
Some of the protesters held up banners that said, �The United Nations must intervene.� �Stop political pride and seek foreign military assistance,� read another.
Others demanded that the Government do more to protect civilians.
On the way the crowd forced vendors to shut their shops and threatene
d whoever did not join the march.
It was the attack on a Police station when real violence started. One group attempted to force their way to the army barracks demanding that the President, whom they thought was around, address them.
The army responded with bullets in the air as protesters scampered for safety.
The same crowd headed for the Police station. The crows, which included women and children, drew the wrath of the Police when they stoned officers. The police replied with teargas and bullets that scattered the crowd. Some crawled, others fell but in the end two bodies lay there.
�An Associated Press photographer saw police officers fire into the crowd, killing two people and wounding another five, the Associated Press reported.
Incensed by the death of their own, the crowd which had by now deserted the main group led by the bishops, turned their wrath on all they assumed to be Acholi accusing them of being responsible for the massacre
of Langi in camps.
They would harass the victim and on pleading in an Acholi accent, the mob would descend on their victim beating him with whatever was handy until he died.
One person James Obal was lynched for allegedly throwing a stone into a crowd and two others, Jovino Okwir was killed at Bar-Ogole Ojwina Division while another person who sustained injuries died at Lira hospital where he was admitted.
One boy was injured at the Police station from what the Police called a �stray bullet�.
�I am dying, I am innocent. I do not know anything,� the unidentified boy wailed as sympathisers carried him inside the Police Station.
A bullet tore his right leg about 50 metres from the station.
The mob also smashed windows of the RDC�s office. The Erute North, MP, Charles Angiro, said the mob also smashed the windows of his car.
The district Police Commander, Godfrey Aropet, said, �A huge group of uncontrolled rioters attacked the Poli
ce station prompting us to use the tear gas to disperse the crowd. We are exercising restraint,� he said.
The district chairman, Franco Ojur, blamed the security personnel for not taking precautionary measures.
The town was silent in the evening. All shops, offices and other social places were closed. No public vehicles could be seen on the roads.
�The protest highlighted widespread anger among residents of northern Uganda, who say the Government was not doing enough to end the 18-year insurgency by the Lord�s Resistance Army,� the Associated press reported.
�The Government had shown a lack of concern for the people of Lira and northern Uganda as a whole,� John Bosco Ochieng, a university student told AP.
Authorities declared an official week of mourning, Ojur told AP.
Lira Hospital Medical superintendent Dr Jane Acheng Ochero, said five Acholi and five Langi were admitted.
Meanwhile, Tim Cocks reports that the Acholi in
Lira are camped out in the Police station, taking refuge from the wave of ethnic violence that swept through the town.
Ends
Published on: Thursday, 26th February, 2004
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