UGANDA 30/4/2004 17:23 GULU DISTRICT: 34 KILLED IN REBEL ATTACK AGAINST DISPLACED CAMP General, Brief Thirty-four people killed and 10 children missing â believed to have drown in an attempt to flee â is the toll of an attack conducted by the rebels of the LRA (lordâs Resistance Army) against a displaced camp in North Uganda. The news was referred by MISNA sources, based on testimonies of an incursion carried out yesterday at around 6:00p.m. in Odek, around 50km east of Gulu, main city of North Uganda. The LRA rebels apparently chased away the government soldiers guarding the camp, which hosts over 15-thousand displaced people in terrible humanitarian conditions. This ulterior killing spree caused wide panic among the civilians: a group of fleeing children attempted to cross a river swollen by the rain season; it appears that the fury of the waters swept them away and at least 10 are feared to have drowned. Also in this occasion the Ugandan military failed to stop the onslaught of the âOlumâ, as the rebels are called in the local language. In February the LRA rebels killed over 250 people in the displaced camp of Barlonyo, in the Lira district. For the past 18 years the armed gangs commanded by Joseph Kony â for the most part made up by child-soldiers â have been causing death and destruction in the northern zones of the nation, without any success of the Kampala government in halting the violence on a military level nor in opening some kind of negotiation. The conflict has so far resulted in an estimated 100-thousand victims, 20-thousand children abducted and over a million (1,500,000 according to some sources) displaced. [BO] N¬±êï‰Ç²,µçhžØ^"wèr‰§zÜ(®Hm¶Ÿÿà "ú ¢g(º
