Sudanese Bishop asks for international support to stop LRA attacks

September 22, 2009 (JUBA) — A Sudanese Catholic bishop from a remote corner of south Sudan has asked for international community intervention to stop Lord Resistance Army attack on innocent people across Western Equatoria State town and villages

Following Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on their teams in Ezo, the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended its activities in some parts of Western Equatoria State and 29 humanitarian workers, including seven UNHCR staff, were evacuated by helicopter,” the UNHCR announced from Geneva on August 21.

The WFP also reported that the Ugandan rebels attacked Ezo district, in the remote Western Equatoria state near Sudan’s border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and killed two people and injured three others, on August 12. The LRA also abducted 10 girls from a local church, and they pillaged and torched homes, stealing food.

Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tambura-Yambio today said intervention from international community is desperately needed to protect innocent people mostly children, women and elderly from a group he described as gangs of guerrilla fighters.

The Bishop further said sporadic attacks on innocent civilians by LRA could not be stopped without help from outside Sudan.

The rebels staged several attacks on a church in the area and vandalized the building before abducting 17 people, mostly in their teens and 20s, shortly after attack on Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in Ezo town, he said one of the young men who went missing was found dead tied to a tree and mutilated.

Those abducted in the attacks, three returned to safety the following day, leaving 13 still missing a month on from the attacks which took place close to Sudan’s border with Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Less than a week later, close to the nearby town of Nzara, six people were ambushed in a forest and killed after being nailed to pieces of wood fastened to the ground. Those who discovered the bodies several days later likened it to a monstrous crucifixion scene. By then reports had come in of 12 people abducted from a village close to Nzara, the reports.
Asked by phone from his Diocesan capital of Yambio, what response and/or role has church played in this crisis, the Bishop said, as church, our response and role to the attacks in the area, was the organization of a three-day prayers event involving Christians of all denominations across Western Equatoria State.

“These religious prayers witnessed attendance of 20,000 people walking more than two miles barefoot in sack cloth and ashes in silent protest at alleged government inaction to step up security in the region,” he said.

“Local government ministers, both from the state capital, Yambio, and Juba, the provincial capital of south Sudan, took part in the prayer event and pledged to do more to boost the police presence in the region,” he adds.

He also said he has written and issued several statements to Christian’s worldwide and Sudanese governments asking their interventions at earliest because situation here needs foreign assistances.

“I also extended similar statements to local government representatives in the meetings, and particularly to authorities in Khartoum (Government of National Unity).”

(ST)