1 000s flee LRA attacks

2008-10-08 20:33

Juba - Thousands of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have fled into south Sudan to escape attacks by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, the UN said on Tuesday.

"The team reported that an estimated 150 Congolese are still crossing daily from the DRC," the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement, adding it had heard reports of attacks on villages with huts set ablaze and children abducted.

The Ugandan rebel LRA agreed to a peace deal with the Ugandan government earlier this year, but the group's leader Joseph Kony, wanted for war crimes by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, failed to appear at a signing ceremony in April.

A period of uncertainty followed, with fresh LRA attacks followed by new promises by Kony to sign the agreement.

The UN agency said at least 5 000 refugees had crossed from northern DRC and most were sheltering in two villages in the south's Western Equatoria State.

Notorious for abducting children

The LRA has frequently been blamed for attacks, killings and child abductions in Western Equatoria in the past five years.

UNHCR representative Geoff Wordly said his agency was planning to distribute food, blankets, plastic sheeting and other survival materials.

The LRA has led one of Africa's longest-running guerrilla wars against the government in Kampala. It is notorious for abducting children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves.

The LRA has been driven out of northern Uganda but continues to carry out raids in Congo, Sudan and Central African Republic from bases in Congo's Garamba National Park.

- Reuters