At least 120 people, most of them fighters in the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), have been killed in northern Uganda in the past fortnight, the army said on Thursday.
“In the past two weeks, the army has killed 90 rebels for 11 of its own soldiers, and not less than 20 civilians were killed during battles in northern Uganda,” army spokesperson Major Shaban Bantariza said, quoting a report issued on Thursday.
He said 16 government soldiers had sustained injuries and 35 submachine guns were recovered along with an assortment of ammunition, including some landmines and rocket launchers.
The LRA has recently been active in eight Ugandan districts of Kitgum, near the border with Sudan, Pader, Gulu, Apac, Lira in northern Uganda and Katakwi, Kaberamaido and Soroti in the northeast, from where government forces are struggling to drive them out.
The LRA has been fighting the government since 1988, ostensibly to install a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. But the group is best known for its brutal stance against the civilian population of northern Uganda.
More than 800 000 people have been displaced by the conflict and currently live in squalid camps set up by government and dotted all over the northern region.