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LRA rebels attack camp in northern Uganda: officials
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| KAMPALA: More than 100 rebels from Lords Resistance Army (LRA) attacked a displaced peoples camp in northern Uganda yesterday and looted foodstuffs, but the number of casualties was not clear, the army and aid workers said. Army spokesman Lieutenant Kiconco Tabaro said that the insurgents wounded an unknown number of people and stole food from Agoro camp in Kitgum district, about 450km north of Kampala. The rebels injured some people and looted some food from a primary school (inside the camp)... I dont know how much food was taken, he said. The army could give not the exact number of attacking rebels, but relief workers said they were more than 100 and people might have died during the morning raid. It was a major attack involving about 100 rebels who crossed the border, but I dont know about the number of the dead, an aid worker told AFP in the region, who requested to remain unnamed for security reasons. They said that the food what was looted was earmarked for schools in the war-ravaged region. Tabaro said initial information indicated that three people were wounded in the attack by the LRA rebels, who have been fighting the government of President Yoweri Museveni for nearly two decades. Our forces are tracking them, the spokesman added. The LRA took over the leadership of northern Ugandas rebellion some 18 years ago, in 1988, two years into a conflict fuelled by the perceived economic marginalisation of the region by Kampala. The group distinguishes itself by its brutality and its total absence of a public political face, a characteristic that makes negotiating an end to the war all but impossible. The LRA has said that it wants to overthrow President Yoweri Musevenis government and replace it with a regime based on the Bibles Ten Commandments. A raft of local and international efforts to broker a peace deal have fail ed, and a surge in the conflict so far has forced at least 1.6mn people from their villagers into crowded and unhealthy camps. Despite repeated claims by Museveni that his government is close to wiping out the rebellion, insurgents have frequently resurfaced with deadly attacks on civilian populations in the scarred region. AFP | |
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