Uganda violence is spreading: CEN 1.31.09 p 8. January 31, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan.trackback
The Lord’s Resistance Army have killed 64 people in the Dioceses of Maridi and Mundri over the past four weeks, a situation report released by the Episcopal Church of the Sudan finds, with the violence now spread across 10 dioceses along the Ugandan and Congolese borders.
Since Christmas Day, LRA rebels have attacked villages across a hundred mile swath of territory along the Sudan’s border from the Central African Republic to Uganda. Approximately 500 people have been killed and over 100,000 driven from their homes and villages to escape the fighting.
Confirmation of atrocities committed by the LRA are being compiled by the church’s Sudanese Development and Relief Agency (SUDRA). An initial assessment for the dioceses of Maridi reported that between Dec 24 and Jan 2, 39 people were killed in five villages south of Maridi and 11 bodies were “found in the bush towards the Congo border.”
The LRA had also kidnapped 17 young boys and girls aged 10 to 14 in Maridi, and so far, “none has been released.” Over 5000 refugees are now sheltering in Maridi, the Rev. Simon Peter Modri reports.
Between Jan 4 and 11, the LRA moved east into Mundri, destroying five more villages, killing 14 and abducting 19 young boys and girls. “Such evil acts caused panic and havoc in the entire population; as a result they fled leaving behind the remaining house hole properties; and field crops ready for harvest, now been destroyed by wild and domestic animals including wild fire,” Mr. Modri wrote. “People in Mundri are in danger,” he said.
Individual reports from church leaders have also catalogued the violence. On Jan 20 the Bishop of Ibba, the Rt. Rev. Wilson Kamani emailed that “yesterday at midnight” the chief of one village was “attacked and gunned down and latter chopped to death” by soldiers from the LRA. He urged the Sudan’s friends in the West to turn their hearts and prayers to the beleaguered country.
On Jan 22, the Bishop of Salisbury said he would press the government to take action on the Sudan. The attacks by the LRA could also lead to the collapse of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the decades long civil war between the Muslim North and Christian South Bishop David Stancliffe said. “I will support a tabled question in the House of Lords next month intended to encourage more vigorous support of the [peace agreement] CPA by HM Government,” he said.
“In the meantime I appeal for prayers for the whole of Sudan and its people, but most especially at this time for our friends Bishops Bismark Avokaya of Mundri, John Zawo of Ezo, Justin Arama of Maridi, Wilson Kamani of Ibba and Bullen Dolli of Lui – and for the clergy and people in their care,” Bishop Stancliffe said.
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