The two top leaders of the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have missed a Tuesday deadline to gather at an assembly point on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border as part of a truce, mediators said.
”They have not assembled yet. They have missed the deadline and it is going to be considered a violation on their part,” said the head of an independent truce monitoring team, Major General Wilson Deng Kuoirot.
”They can be given maybe 24 hours. It’s a delay of the implementation of the peace process.”
Kuoirot said more than 800 fighters had already assembled at two locations as part of a landmark truce signed last month, raising hopes of an end to the two-decade insurgency in northern Uganda, one of Africa’s longest running wars.
The ceasefire expired on Tuesday, although Ugandan government negotiators were expected to review the truce at a meeting with LRA representatives later this week.
Kuoirot said LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti had not turned up at Ri-Kwangba yet.
Kony and Otti are both wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. — Reuters