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Uganda's LRA rebels kidnap 135 Congolese villagers
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 05 - 06 - 2009


Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)
rebels in Uganda kidnapped around 135 villagers, including
children, in two attacks this week in Democratic Republic of
Congo's north, Reuters cited an official as saying today.
LRA fighters raided the village of Dakwa around 200 km (125
miles) south of Congo's porous border with Central African
Republic on Tuesday as residents gathered for a funeral, before
returning to mount a second attack the following day, he said.
This week's attack is the latest in a series by the LRA, one
of Africa's longest-running rebellions, which abandoned northern
Uganda several years ago but continues to roam around Congo and
Sudan despite the countries operations against them.
"They surrounded the village. The people were in mourning.
They were taken away into the bush," said Marcel Kumbonyeki, the
local Catholic priest in Bondo, some 200 km away, who was
contacted by Dakwa's village priest soon after the attack.
"They carried out a second attack at 1400 (1200 GMT) on
Wednesday. At that time a policeman was shot then stabbed to
death, and they kidnapped the rest," he said.
Kumbonyeki said 138 people were kidnapped by the rebels in
all, though three later escaped.
The local mission of the Swiss chapter of medical charity
Medecins Sans Frontieres was attempting on Friday to verify
details of the attack.
"People are starting to come south from Dakwa to where they
feel safer. They are coming in small groups," Pierluigi Testa,
MSF's local coordinator, told Reuters.
The LRA was pushed out of northern Uganda in 2005 after its
two-decade bush war killed thousands of people and displaced 2
million, but has continued to mount raids in remote corners of
Central African Republic, Congo and Sudan.
Uganda led an offensive also involving Congolese soldiers
against LRA strongholds in Congo's isolated Garamba National
Park on Dec. 14 after LRA leader Joseph Kony again failed to
sign a deal to end his rebellion.
LRA fighters fleeing the assault on their bases killed at
least 271 people in a series week massacres that forced tens of
thousands to flee their homes.
Coalition forces failed to locate Kony, and the majority of
Ugandan troops deployed in Congo for the operations have left.
But the rebels have continued to attack villagers in a
region that straddles Congo's borders with Sudan and Central
African Republic, killing some 1,000 civilians since late
December, according to Human Rights Watch.
Kony and several of his commanders are wanted for war crimes
by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.


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