Ugandan rebels the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) killed eight civilians as they retreated from a failed attack on the offices of a game park in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Ugandan officials said on Tuesday.
The LRA is believed to have killed around 500 civilians in the region in recent weeks in an apparent response to a military offensive by Uganda, DR Congo and South Sudan.
“They [rebels] thought they would find some guns in the offices of the park but they did not find any,” Ugandan Deputy Defense Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said.
“The rebels killed the people not within the park but in the neighborhood,” she added.
LRA spokesman David Matsanga said the rebel group was innocent of the charges. He accused a Ugandan army battalion of carrying out the attacks to implicate the LRA.
“As far as we are concerned, the Ugandan army is in full control of Garamba,” Matsanga said. “It is the 105th battalion that is responsible for the killings.”
Matsanga said the LRA was still committed to a peace process that faltered in 2008, leading to the attack on the rebels in December.
The LRA is alleged to have begun its rampage on Christmas Eve, killing civilians in two villages in DR Congo.
On Dec. 26, the LRA guerrillas massacred dozens of people in a church in DR Congo, according to Ugandan military sources and aid workers.
The guerrillas used machetes, swords and clubs to kill the people — amongst them women and children — who had taken refuge in a Catholic church near the border with the Central African Republic.
The rebels have been hiding out in Garamba since late 2004 after being flushed out of their bases in South Sudan.
The LRA, led by former lay preacher Joseph Kony, for decades unleashed terror in Uganda’s northern region, where its rebellion has displaced nearly 2 million people from their homes.
Thousands of civilians died in the conflict, while thousands of children were abducted and forced to fight or serve as sex slaves.
The International Criminal Court in 2005 issued arrest warrants for five LRA leaders, including Kony, for trial for murder, torture, rape, abductions and the drafting of children in warfare.
The Ugandan government and the rebels entered into talks to end the war in the middle of 2006, but the rebels have refused to sign the final peace treaty this year.
They insist that The Hague-based court should first withdraw its indictments.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
RSS