One of Africa’s most feared rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army, has abandoned its bases in southern Sudan and crossed into Uganda in an apparent attempt to escape a suspected outbreak of the deadly disease Ebola.
Several hundred of the Ugandan guerrillas were spotted yesterday moving south towards the Ugandan town of Kitgum in an unusually large deployment. It is feared that they may carry the virus. Biologists from the World Health Organisation are expected to arrive in the border region tomorrow to establish what illness has killed at least seven people in Sudan in the past two weeks.
Health officials in Kitgum believe the real death toll is 45 and say that all the symptoms — fever, diarrhoea and vomiting blood — are characteristic of Ebola. If confirmed, it would be the region’s third outbreak in as many years.
Ebola, which starts with a fever and headache which can lead to massive internal bleeding, is passed on by infected body fluids, with some strains killing 90% of victims.
The Ugandan health ministry said that although there were no confirmed cases of Ebola fever in the country, eight border districts had been put on alert.
Ugandan army officials said a 700-strong rebel force had crossed back into the country from Sudan and was moving south through the bush on foot, a concentration seldom seen since the government acquired helicopter gunships.
The rebels kidnapped 40 young Roman Catholic seminarians in Gulu during an attack on Saturday night, the Vatican’s missionary news agency Misna said yesterday, citing religious sources in the region.
The 17-year-old civil war which has killed and displaced hundreds of thousands in northern Uganda has picked up steam, with the army claiming to have killed 27 rebels last week.
Villagers have crowded into towns to escape rebel bands who roam the countryside, looting and abducting children as forced conscripts for a war which they say is against the southern-dominated government of President Yoweri Museveni. But most victims of the rebel ambushes and massacres are civilians.
The LRA leader, Joseph Kony, is a messianic recluse who blends Christianity and Islam. Despite Sudan allowing the Ugandan army to cross the border to flush out the rebels, many of Kony’s fighters have remained hidden in Sudan. Ugandan commanders in Kitgum say the fact that they have emerged now suggests they are fleeing a suspected Ebola outbreak.
Opiya Lakana, a civilian security officer in Kitgum, said families were pouring into town after rebel scouts were sighted on the outskirts. ”We hear more [rebels] are coming because of the disease.” – Guardian Unlimited Â