THE Ugandan army claimed today that it had killed 54 Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters during an air raid yesterday in southern Sudan. "Yesterday (Monday) at around 5 pm (midnight AEST) we located a group headed by rebel commanders Odhiambo and Lakony, we pounded the group and managed to put out of action 54 of them, whose bodies our ground forces counted," army spokesman Shaban Bantariza said by telephone.
Bantariza said the aerial bombardment took place some 60 kilometres north of the Uganda-Sudan border. Bantariza said the LRA group targeted in Monday's raid was based well inside Sudan, beyond the Ugandan army's permitted sphere of operations. The army's claim could not be independently confirmed. No reaction was available from the LRA, which has no spokesman and hardly any links to the outside world. |