Army claims 17 rebel deaths
2005-01-29 16:49
Kampala - The Ugandan army said on Saturday that it had killed 17 fighters of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and recovered ammunition in several attacks in northern Uganda over the past two days.
"We killed 10 in different skirmishes in both Pader and Kitgum districts between Thursday and Friday, while another seven were killed over the same period elsewhere," said Lieutenant Ronald Kakulungu, the army spokesperson in the region.
The army suffered no casualties in the raids, but recovered an assortment of ammunition and rescued four children from captivity, he said.
The military also recovered ten cows that LRA insurgents had stolen from villages where they were looking for food, Kakulungu added.
The LRA has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni's secular government since 1988, ostensibly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
It is notorious for its brutality against the people of northern Uganda, where more than 1,6 million people have been displaced from their homes and are living in squalid camps.
The rebel group tends to swell its ranks by raiding camps for displaced people in northern Uganda and kidnapping children living there, forcing the boys into combat, the girls into sexual slavery.