LRA abducts 21 in Uganda
2002-08-15 23:33
Kampala -
Sudan-based rebels early this week abducted 21 people in a raid
on a village in Uganda's war-ravaged northern region, officials
have said.
Guerrillas from the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) attacked Odek, a
village 44km east of the region's main urban centre of
Gulu, just before dawn Tuesday, the civic chairman of Gulu district
retired colonel Walter Ochola said on Thursday.
They had burned huts and looted a health centre before taking
off with 21 people. "They attacked Odek before dawn Tuesday. They
went off with 21 people. They managed to do so because there was no
army presence in the area. But the army moved in and it is
following the rebels," Ochola said on the telephone from Gulu, north of the Ugandan capital Kampala.
The LRA, who have been carrying out the deadly insurgency in the
region for 15 years, have often used abduction tactics, taking
mostly youths whom they forcefully draft into their army.
Uganda sent troops to Sudan to attack the LRA at their bases
there but the rebels instead stepped up their campaign within the
country.
President Yoweri Museveni who is now camped in the region to
oversee an army offensive against the LRA on Thursday morning
assured the country director of the Rome-based World Food Programme
WFP that the Ugandan army would provide security to its food
convoys.
WFP convoys are ferrying supplies to nearly half a million
people displaced by the war, according to a press release.
- Sapa-DPA
- SAPA