At least 22 civilians were killed and 11 wounded in an overnight rebel attack on a displaced people’s camp near the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, an aid worker and an army spokesperson said on Monday.
”We have confirmed that 29 civilians died, but we don’t have the casuality figures from both the rebels and the army,” said the Norwegian Refugee Council programme manager in Uganda, Caroline Ort.
”Some people were abducted and killed a distance from the camp where their bodies were found. Eleven people were wounded,” Ort said of the attack in Pagaka camp for displaced people, about 16km southwest of Gulu.
”Many people were either shot or hacked to death and by the time we were there, some volunteers were busy burying the dead and we had received reports of five other bodies located some where in the bushes, but we had not confirmed that,” Ort added.
She explained that between 150 and 200 huts at the camp were set ablaze and many people were forced to flee to nearby camps and towards Gulu town.
Army spokesperson Major Shaban Bantariza said the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacked the camp in three groups and put the civilian death toll at 22.
”A group of LRA rebels attacked Pagaka displaced people’s camp in three prongs: one attacked the camp, a second one attacked the soldiers guarding it and the third one concentrated on the patrol units,” Bantariza said.
”Eighteen bodies were found a distance from the camp and we believe that these were abducted people who were killed after delivering the loot. Four other people died in the crossfire,” he said.
Bantariza added that the army killed three rebels, suffered three injured soldiers and recovered several sub-machine guns.
He confirmed that the raiders also torched dozens of huts, stole foodstuff and abducted people and forced them to carry the loot from the camp.
The LRA has been fighting Museveni’s secular government since 1988, ostensibly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
But it is best known for its brutality against the people of northern Uganda, where more than 1,5-million people have been displaced from their homes and are living in squalid camps dotting the entire region.
The rebels abduct young boys for recruitment into their ranks, while girls are made sex slaves to rebel commanders. — Sapa-AFP