Ugandan rebels blamed for killings
KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan rebels unleashed a two-day campaign of arson, looting and murder in remote southern Sudan last month, killing 100 villagers and forcing 15,000 others to flee their homes, a religious leader and Sudanese rebels said Friday.
The Lord’s Resistance Army rebels attacked six villages around the town of Madgwi, about 30 miles north of the Ugandan border, between June 25-27, said Rev. Paul Yugusuk, an Anglican church official. About 100 villagers were killed, he said.
The Ugandan insurgents are believed to have bases in the area.
The Equatorial Defense Force, a Sudanese rebel faction based in the area, said at least 122 people had been killed in six villages and 15,000 forced from their homes.
News of the massacre was only filtering out days later because the villages are located far from the region’s main towns, said Charles Kisanga, secretary-general of the Equatorial Defense Forces, in a telephone interview.
The attack ended when fighters of the Equatorial Defense Forces launched a counteroffensive, Kisanga said. At least 20 Ugandan insurgents and three Sudanese rebels were killed in combat.
The Lord’s Resistance Army, which rarely speaks to journalists, could not be reached for comment.
“This was a totally systematic war of looting,” Kisanga told the Associated Press by telephone from Britain. “They killed women and children in the process.”
Sudanese rebel commanders on the ground reported about 2,000 Ugandan insurgents attacked the villages, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles and machine guns, Kisanga said.
“Their battle cries, language and uniform identified them as the LRA,” Kisanga said. “They were not speaking in the local Arabic language like other fighters used by the government.”
The Sudanese insurgents accused the army of helping the Ugandan rebels to launch the attacks. There was no immediate comment from Sudan.
In early June, the Ugandan insurgents reportedly killed more than 40 people in an attack on several villages in southern Sudan.