Rebels from the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have again entered the Democratic Republic of Congo from Sudan, a senior DRC officer said Thursday, quoting forestry officials in the border region.
”We have not seen them ourselves but since November 12 rangers in the [Garamba] park have reported the presence of 20 to 50 elements of the LRA in the northeast of the park,” regional commander General Constant Ndima said.
”They came from southern Sudan,” he added. ”According to some witnesses they kidnapped three Congolese gold prospectors, probably to act as porters.”
Ndima said the DRC military was sending forces to check the reports, in cooperation with the United Nations mission known as Monuc.
The latest reports came three weeks after Monuc said it had sent 150 troops to the Aba region near the Sudanese border to keep the LRA out.
Monuc’s military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Thierry Provendier told a press conference on November 2 that in cooperation with the Congolese army, the UN soldiers would ”search out the presence of rebels along the border and disarm them if their presence is proved”.
A Monuc spokesperson in the region, Moussa Diallo, said on Thursday a new verification mission would be sent ”very soon,” while Ndima added that if the rebels were detected Congolese troops would confront them and disarm them.
Around 300 LRA fighters entered north eastern DRC from their bases in southern Sudan in September. Monuc later confirmed that these rebels had returned to Sudan on October 6.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 1,6-million displaced in northern Uganda since the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion against Kampala in 1988.
The group is accused of massive atrocities in the region, including the abductions of at least 20 000 children who are used as porters, fighters and sex slaves for LRA commanders.
Kinshasa rejected on October 20 a request from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government to send its own troops into DRC to hunt down members of the LRA.
Kampala last sent troops into the DRC during that country’s devastating 1998-2003 civil war, ostensibly to battle Ugandan rebel groups there, but was accused of using the opportunity to plunder its vast neighbor’s natural resources.
Museveni has threatened unilaterally to invade the DRC to crush the rebels there unless concerted action is taken by the Congolese military and Monuc to forcibly disarm and deport them. – AFP
