- CUK-DEK (AFP) -- The
smoking ruins of Barlonyo displaced people's camp were virtually deserted
Monday, two days after Uganda's worst rebel attack in almost a decade left
more than 200 people dead.
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- Some bodies still lay inside scorched huts while the
corpse of an old man, slashed in several places, was lying just outside
the camp's perimeter in a dried pool of blood.
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- A few people were pulling down the walls of the ruined
buildings to cover the dead, while others built shallow graves or trenches.
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- The three-hour orgy of violence endured by the camp's
4 800 residents began shortly after 5pm on Saturday when a group of children,
defying the camp leader's instructions, left the camp to look for honey
in the surrounding woods, according to witness accounts.
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- The children came across a group of armed men in military
uniform in the woods and ran back to the camp where they informed the militiamen
newly trained by the regular army to take care of security.
-
- "No sooner had the children alerted us about the
presence of rebels than the rebels started attacking from different fronts
on the camp," said Alfred Komakech, 20, one of the militiamen.
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- The rebels are assumed to be members of the Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA), which has been active since 1988.
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- At first some of the rebels pretended they too were part
of the militia, known as Amuka.
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- But before long, the camp was under heavy attack from
three sides.
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- "I fired at them and emptied my gun, but then I
took off," said the young man.
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- "As they came into the camp they were just shouting
that all the Amukas should be captured, that the Langi (an ethnic group)
should be killed because we failed to support their rebellion," added
Komakech.
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- An old woman, Immaculate Auma, said she had heard the
rebels say they were grateful to find all their targets so close together.
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- During the attack, the rebels "left one way out
but laid an ambush there and shot those running away", said Komakech.
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- So many people ran back to the huts, but these were quickly
set on fire.
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- Witnesses said they saw the rebels kill some of their
captives as they withdrew, at about 8.30pm.
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- An army unit arrived on the scene about half an hour
later, according to several sources.
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- At least 198 civilians and five Amukas were killed, including
six, one of them a child, who later died of their injuries in hospital.
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- "My parents were burnt alive in one of the huts.
I buried 10 of my relatives yesterday before I brought these children to
hospital," one camp resident, shopkeeper Samuel Ongwang, told AFP
in the nearby town of Lira.
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- The LRA is infamous for its atrocities against civilians
and abductions of thousands of children, forced to serve as soldiers or
concubines, and has been condemned by human rights groups and UN aid agencies.
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- The LRA's purposes are unclear, mainly because, unlike
most of the world's rebel groups, it has no relations with the outside
world.
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- - Edited by William Smook
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- copyright Media24 Ltd. All rights reserved.
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- http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,6119,2-11-1447_1488180,00.html
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