Ugandan rebels bludgeoned 13 civilians to death and abducted several other people when they raided a village in the north of the country, a member of parliament said on Thursday.
The attack in the northern district of Lira on Wednesday was carried out at dawn by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), said the local member of parliament Alex Okot.
He said as they were leaving with their hostages ”they encountered an army mobile unit that tried to pursue them and they resorted to killing some of their captives.”
Most of the victims had their hands tied and were clubbed to death, according to Okot, who added that many residents of the village, 25 kilometres east of Lira, fled their homes after the killings.
The LRA has been battling government forces in the north of the East African country since 1988 with the declared aim of replacing President Yoweri Museveni’s secular government with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
Their campaign has been marked by brutality against the civilian population of northern Uganda, with frequent abductions of young boys for forced recruitment as rebel fighters and girls to serve as sex slaves for rebel commanders. – AFP
