Rebels kill 10 people in Uganda

2005-05-06 14:25

Kampala - Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have killed at least 10 displaced people and wounded another 15 who were working in a field in northern Gulu district, army and church officials said on Friday.

"We have since established at least 10 people were killed and 15 others were wounded," said army spokesman Lieutenant Kiconco Tabaro.

In the bloodbath on Thursday, the insurgents "used machetes, axes and hoes that the people were using to dig in their garden to kill them, while those who ran away were shot," he said, adding the wounded were admitted in Lacor Mission hospital in "critical condition".

But a Roman Catholic Church official in Gulu said 14 were killed in the attack at Koc Goma area, about 40 kilometres southwest of Gulu.

"The rebels killed 14 people on Thursday morning. The people had gone to dig in fields near their IDP (displaced people's) camp," said the official, who requested to remain unnamed.

The LRA, which operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni's secular government since 1988, ostensibly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

Several attempts to sign a truce and launch formal peace talks have failed amid growing mistrust between the warring sides.

The army spokesman said the military operations have weakened the rebellion and the latest attack was an attempt by the rebels to prove the movement is still strong.

More than 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes and are living in squalid camps in northern Uganda.

The rebel group swells its ranks by raiding camps for displaced people and kidnapping children living there, forcing the boys into combat and the girls into sexual slavery.

- AFP