At least 53 people have been hacked to death by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northern Uganda’s Lira district, a Roman Catholic priest there confirmed on Tuesday.
”Thirteen people were killed in Ngeta, 10 in Ewal, 14 in Akangi and 16 in Angura, all areas in Lira district,” said Roman Catholic missionary Father Sebat Ayele in Lira.
”We believe the death toll is much higher as many deaths from other localities in the district have not been reported,” Ayele said.
The villages Ayele cited excluded Olero, also in Lira, where military spokesperson Lieutenant Chris Magesi said another 10 people were executed by the LRA rebels on Monday night.
”We are in a terrible humanitarian crisis, as we don’t know how many people may have been taken captive,” Ayele said.
”We are in total confusion. I passed by thousands of people trekking to Lira town and I saw these people moving, it was very painful,” he added.
”Who is going to save us? We are like Iraqis, who when one person is killed, everybody talks about it, but here we are talking of hundreds killed and nobody talks about it,” he said.
”No single bullet was fired during the latest killings, with the rebels using pangas and machetes to hack and kill their victims,” Ayele said.
”I am now before a classroom at Ngeta Teachers College and all my students are scared. I don’t know what I am going to do,” he added.
The LRA took over the leadership of northern Uganda’s rebellion in 1988, two years into a conflict fuelled by the perceived economic marginalisation of the region by Kampala.
The rebels have abducted thousands of children into their ranks and become notorious for mutilating civilians with the stated aim of overthrowing President Yoweri Museveni’s secular government and replacing it with one based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and some 1,3-million people have fled their homes since the war began in the East African country. – Sapa-AFP