Congo-Kinshasa: LRA Elements Commit Grave Human Rights Violations

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United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)

PRESS RELEASE
10 October 2008
Posted to the web 12 October 2008

Codjo Houegniglo

The UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) says that during the period from mid-September to the beginning of October, elements from the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have conducted attacks on 16 localities in the DRC's eastern territory of Dungu, Province Oriental, killing a least 52 people, and abducting and then executing another 159 children and 10 adults.

The findings are contained in a preliminary report issued by the United Nations Human Rights Office and MONUC's Kisangani Human Rights office following their joint fact-finding mission to Dungu from 29 September to 8 October. The investigation team heard from three children who managed to escape from their abductors.

Witness statements were taken from survivors, host families in Dungu, and school and church officials in the affected localities.

"In all localities that suffered attacks, the LRA elements conducted a campaign of killing, systematic abduction of children, and burning of almost all houses ...," reads the report.

Most affected by the simultaneous attacks on September 17th were the villages of Duru, Kpiaka, Kiliwa and Madola (all within a 60 to 90 km radius of Dungu, the area's main town) that had their populations either abducted or killed.

Several tens of thousands of people fled their villages to seek refuge in the town of Bangadi, located over 100 km northwest of Dungu, where they were now living in very precarious conditions.

Due to this influx, there are now 25,000 people in Gangadi, which normally is home to 10,000.

Meanwhile, the village of Ngilima, 45 km north of Dungu, took in about 10,000 displaced people.

The report says the LRA attacks could be "reprisals and dissuasive attacks aimed at preventing splits and desertions possibly underway within the LRA".

Or it could be in a response to the ongoing deployment, in the region, of "the FARDC [Armed Forces of the DRC], with MONUC support, along with other national security forces, signaling the possibility of joint action against the LRA".

Or else this could be an LRA attempt at reinforce[ing] its ranks through forcible recruitment of easily manipulable minors.

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