 |
| ON A KILLING SPREE: Mr Kony |
Kampala
Suspected Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on Friday hacked to death 45 civilians in a church in the DR Congo, bringing the number killed in the central African country and South Sudan to 90 in four days, an aid agency and military officials have said. The army yesterday said it had followed the rebels and killed 13 members of the rebel unit behind the church massacre.
Most of the 45 civilians cut with pangas and clubs inside a catholic church, about 10km south east of Doruma in northeastern DRC, were women, children and the elderly, an aid agency official who did not want to be named for security reasons told Daily Monitor yesterday.
He said the civilians could not flee following suspected LRA rebel attacks on Christmas Day. Doruma is about 80km from the DRC border with the Central African Republic. “Bodies of women and children, with deep cuts are littered inside and outside the church,” the aid official said. “The residents have fled the place and are in Dungu where they expect protection from the DRC government.”
The spokesman for the allied forces, Capt. Chris Magezi, yesterday confirmed the massacre via satellite telephone link from DRC but added that the army yesterday directly engaged the rebels, killing 13 of them.
It was the first time the army, which is pursuing the LRA rebels under an operation code-named “Lightning Thunder”, had directly engaged the rebels since the operation began on December 14.
The UPDF, together with supporting forces from DRC and South Sudan, have their headquarters at Dungu, about 90km away from Garamba National Park, the centre of the operation.
According to Capt. Magezi, the army engaged the rebels in south Doruma about 20kms from the scene of their heinous slaughter.
Daily Monitor could not independently verify these reports by press time yesterday. He also confirmed the slaughter of the civilians, saying, “The rebels cut 45 people into pieces in the 1994 Interahamwe Rwanda-genocide-style. They used pangas, hoes and clubs to kill them. Our forces came to know about the killings while pursuing the LRA on Saturday.”
Capt. Magezi said among the bodies scattered at the scene were those of children as young as two years. “We condemn these heinous acts by the LRA terrorists. They think by killing innocent civilian, the allied forces will be intimidated to back off the operation but they are misleading themselves. We will continue to pursue them until we catch up with them,” Capt. Magezi said, adding that the LRA group responsible for the killing is one heading to the Central Africa Republic.
He said Friday’s murders bring the total number of people killed by the LRA rebels since December 24 to over 90 in northeastern DRC and South Sudan.
Saturday Monitor of December 27 reported that suspected LRA rebels massacred 35 civilians in coordinated attacks in the DRC and South Sudan.
According to the UN sponsored Radio Okapi in DRC, five children were also abducted by the rebels in Dungu. But LRA peace delegation chairman David Nyekorach-Matsanga yesterday denied the rebels were behind the killings in Doruma church and others before. “Reports about the LRA killing innocent civilians is another propaganda campaign by the Uganda army,” Mr Matsanga said yesterday. “As you are aware, I am not a military spokesman for the LRA but I have it on good authority from the field commanders that the LRA is not in those areas where the killings are reported taking place.”
Mr Matsanga said the LRA is still interested in the peace negotiations with the government. He called upon the chief mediator in the botched talks, Dr. Riek Machar, to surrender copies of the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) to the UN, which the rebels want to take over mediation.
But Capt. Magezi said the rebels were responsible for the killings based on evidence on the ground and testimonies by the survivors. He said the rebels are killing civilians not as a result of the regional military offensive against them but “a continuation of their past acts” after they found that they can no longer hoodwink the world that they are interested in peace negotiations with the government. “Insinuations that the rebels started killings because of Operation Lightning Thunder are misleading. LRA has been killing civilians in the last two years when we were holding peace negotiations,” Capt. Magezi said.
Intelligence sources in DRC and Uganda say, because of the heightened killings, DRC troops have been assigned to guard civilians while the UPDF pursue the rebels. The sources said contrary to claims by Mr Matsanga that Kony is in CAR, he is reported to be hiding in Garamba. The park, according to the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, is estimated to be over 5,000sq.km. It is about a fifth of Uganda and requires a very large force if it is to be penetrated fully.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Massacre_Kony_slaughters_45_in_church_77475.shtml
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
