Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on Tuesday bludgeoned to death nine children they had earlier abducted as well as three others they found in a village in northern Uganda, army sources said.
The attacks occured in the north’s periodically troubled Lira district and follow a week of intense LRA operations in the area in which up to 100 civilians have been reported to have been massacred, forcing about 300 000 to flee their homes into makeshift camps.
Ugandan Army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza said: ”The rebels came and killed three local youths and then turned their weapons on the nine abductees they had captive. All were killed by clubbing them to death.”
Bantariza said the company of LRA soldiers was under direct orders from LRA leader Joseph Kony to kill everyone in the area. He said the army did not have enough local defence forces to prevent all attacks.
The army spokesman for Lira, Second Lieutenant Chris Magezi, said army operations have been beefed up in the district in response to the attacks.
Military intelligence sources say the LRA is trapped in Lira and is becoming increasingly fragmented as it trys to flee north towards Pader and the Sudan border, making it harder to track.
The latest LRA massacre comes as Lira local government officials are reported to be overwhelmed by the increase in the displaced since the rebel group started stepping up its campaign against civilians in the district last week.
The mayor of Lira town, Peter Owiny, was quoted in the state-owned New Vision daily on Tuesday as saying, ”the influx [of displaced people] is beyond our control. We cannot offer them basic requirements like food, medical care or shelter.”
Army sources say the attacks are being focused in the area because of increased army pressure on the LRA in Teso, to the east of Uganda, and Acholiland (Kitgum and Gulu), to the north-west. They say some pockets of the LRA are trapped in a ”corridor” between Kitgum, bordering Sudan, and Teso, stretching south-east towards Kenya, and are taking out their wrath on the civilian population.
The LRA says it is fighting to overthrow Uganda’s government and replace it with one based on the biblical 10 commandments.
But its attacks have overwhelmingly targeted civilians. The United Nations estimates that the LRA has abducted 8 500 children since June last year to turn them into soldiers or sex slaves.
Only half of that number have been recovered.