Uganda rebels kill scores
2002-07-25 19:50
Kampala - Rebels in northern Uganda killed 42 people in the early hours of
Thursday morning using spears and machetes, an army spokesperson said,
blaming the massacre on the notorious Lord's Resistance Army.
"They attacked sometime after midnight. They used machetes and
spears to kill their victims," Lieutenant Paddy Ankunda of the
Ugandan army said.
The attack, involving some 100 rebels took place in Akol
village, in Kitgum district, some 430km north
of the capital Kampala.
Ankunda said government troops were in pursuit of the attackers.
"The intention was to kill, not to abduct," Ankunda said,
alluding to the LRA's historic penchant for kidnapping civilians,
usually children, and then forcing them to take up arms and carry
out barbaric acts against their peers.
Independent sources in the region's capital, Gulu, confirmed the
attack and said rebels may have chosen their target because it was
a stronghold of the government.
The LRA has for at least a decade been carrying out a violent
campaign against the secular government of President Yoweri
Museveni allegedly with the aim of replacing it with one that would
follow the biblical Ten Commandments.
They intensified their campaign in May.
Museveni recently gave his backing to peace talks brokered by
religious leaders but also sent his army into LRA strongholds in
southern Sudan. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA