AU commission probing LRA activities arrive in Khartoum
September 13, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – An African Union (AU) commission tasked with investigating the Ugandan Lord Resistance (LRA) activities started a visit to Khartoum hours before an impending visit by President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday.
Last year, LRA commander Dominic Ongwen who was apprehended by the International Criminal Court (ICC) disclosed that he met with Kony near Darfur in December 2014.
Uganda has long accused Sudan of supporting the LRA rebels and Museveni personally accused Khartoum of harboring them in Darfur region.
The spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry Ali al-Sadiq said the visit of the committee is unrelated to Museveni’s visit and that they initiated a number of meetings with officials about the abuses committed by the LRA noting that it will submit a report to the African Union .
For two decades the LRA rebels were involved in a vicious fight with the Ugandan government. Most of the fighting took place in northern Uganda.
At the peak of the conflict nearly two million people in the region, Kony’s home area, and where most of his fighters also come from, were forced from their homes and villages into internally displaced persons camps.
The rebel group has been accused of mass murder and forceful abduction of civilian population to swell their ranks.
In 2005, the International Criminal Court indicted the top LRA leaders including Kony for crimes against humanity.
The LRA was flushed out of Uganda in 2006. The rebel group then moved to South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic (CAR).
In 2011, US President Barrack Obama sent to the Great Lakes region 100 military advisers to help the armies of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central Africa Republic fight the rebels.
(ST)