Eight Sudanese civilians killed in LRA ambush: report

KHARTOUM, March 13 (AFP) — Eight Sudanese nationals were killed when their car was ambushed by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in south Sudan, media said Sunday.

The passengers were traveling in a government car when LRA fighters shot them dead on Saturday, the English-language daily Khartoum Monitor reported.

Two women and a baby were among the fatal casualties and three other people were seriously wounded. None of them were believed to be officials.

The notoriously brutal LRA operates from bases in southern Sudan and has received help in the form of arms and ammunition from Khartoum in retaliation for support Kampala has given to the southern rebel SPLA.

Since 2002 the Khartoum government has allowed Ugandan forces to conduct operations against the LRA in parts of southern Sudan, which shares a border with Uganda.

More than 1.6 million people have been forced from their homes during the LRA’s 18-year war against the Ugandan government that has been marked by brutal attacks against the civilian population in north Uganda and southern Sudan.

The LRA has been fighting to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni’s secular government and replace it with one ostensibly guided by the Biblical Ten Commandments since 1998.