Ugandan army claims killing of eight LRA rebels

Sept 3, 2005 (Kampala) — The Ugandan army said Saturday it had killed eight Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters in the past two days in various parts of the war-ravaged north.

Army spokesman Lieutenant Deo Akiiki said the insurgents were killed during clashes with government troops in Pader, one of the Ugandan northern districts that have been heavily hit by insurgents.

“We killed six in Tumango southwest of Goma hills on Thursday when our infantry and helicopter forces hit a group of rebels spotted in the area,” Akiiki told AFP from his base in northern Uganda.

Two other rebels were killed on Friday in another battle in Achol Bur, where the army also rescued five children from the hands of the insurgents, the spokesman added.

There were no reports of casualities on the government side.

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

They are best known, however, for atrocities against civilians and abducting villagers as bearers, child soldier conscripts and sex slaves.

The subsequent conflict has displaced more than 1.6 million people, who are living in squalid camps in northern Uganda.

AFP/ST