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| LRA massacres 192 in refugee camp attack |
| 2004-02-22 |
| Ugandan rebels shot and burnt to death 192 people in a camp for displaced civilians in their bloodiest attack in years, a local official said on Sunday. The killings by guerrillas of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a group based in lawless areas of neighbouring southern Sudan, cast fresh doubt on repeated recent assertions by the Ugandan government that its Army is about to defeat the LRA. The Chief Administration Officer of northern Lira district, Daniel Odwedo, said authorities had counted 192 bodies after the attack on Ogur camp. “Rebels attacked the camp of 4,000 people with automatic weapons and hand grenades and then set fire to grass-thatched huts in which people were hiding," he said. ‘‘According to the local militia, rebels started the attack using artillery fire. The militia, seeing they were overpowered, told the villagers to flee into the nearby bushes but the villagers fled into their grass-thatched huts which the rebels set on fire,’’ Father Sebat Ayala said by telephone from Lira town. The Eritrean-born Catholic priest said the 36 militia guarding the camp of 4,800 inhabitants were no match for the 100 or so heavily-armed rebels. Most camp dwellers escaped into the nearby bush and returned to the camp on Sunday morning, the priest said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |