Ugandan Rebels Attack Refugee Camp

06/08/2002| IslamWeb

Rebels overran a U.N. camp for Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda Monday, killing 14 people, abducting four and destroying equipment and supplies, a U.N. spokeswoman said. The 24,000 Sudanese refugees living in the refugee camp in Acholipii, 185 miles north of Kampala, fled the area, said Bushra Malik, spokeswoman in Uganda for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

About 10,000 of those refugees have moved 10 miles south to Rwakiko, she said, but officials do not know where the other 14,000 went.

The International Rescue Committee aid agency said it lost contact with 37 staff members, all of them Ugandan citizens, working at the camp.

Fighters from the Lord's Resistance Army attacked the camp early Monday morning, driving away 100 Ugandan soldiers, looting the camp for valuables and setting fires during their two-hour rampage, she said.

The dead included eight refugees and six Ugandans, and the abducted included two Ugandan teachers and two aid workers, Malik said.

The Lord's Resistance Army, formed in 1987, wants to replace Uganda's constitution with the Ten Commandments and remove Museveni. It has little contact with the outside world and rebel leaders could not be reached for comment.

The camp housed refugees who fled fighting near their homes in southern Sudan. All of its supplies either were looted or burned and most of the camp's mud and grass huts were destroyed, Malik said.

"There was extensive, large-scale damage to property, wide-scale looting of equipment and supplies," Malik said. "We are deeply concerned about the incident, and we are working closely with the government to address the situation."

A spokesman for an army division based in nearby Gulu said he heard about the attack but commanders still were trying to verify details.

A member of parliament from the area, Okot Santa, said she was told many refugees were killed.

"I have been informed that soldiers were running away from the camp and refugees are scattered," she said.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni currently is in the largest town in the region, Gulu, to oversee security. The government-owned New Vision newspaper reported Monday that he met top army officers to discuss the five-month offensive against the rebels, which involves attacking their bases in southern Sudan and chasing them through northern Uganda.

The army claims to have destroyed almost all the main rebel bases.

The rebels are known for kidnapping children and then turning the boys into fighters and the girls into concubines. They have killed and abducted scores of people since increasing their attacks in May 

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Rebels overran a U.N. camp for Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda Monday, killing 14 people, abducting four and destroying equipment and supplie