he Lord’s Resistance Army, a cultish militia that has terrorized parts of Africa for decades, has launched a new spate of attacks in Democratic Republic of Congo this year after a lull in the second half of 2011, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a video aimed at stopping the cult’s leader goes viral
Earlier this month Ugandan troops almost caught Joseph Kony, the leader of the quasi-religious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is accused of widespread atrocities across several countries
US President Barack Obama has said he is sending about 100 US soldiers to Uganda to help regional forces battle the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army.
The LRA is blamed for mass murder, rape and kidnapping in the region.
Co-ordinated action must be taken to end the long-running brutal campaign by the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, leaders from the four countries affected said yesterday.
A rare three-day meeting of 30 religious and community leaders as well as local government officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Uganda criticised the “lack of a co-ordinated and comprehensive strategy” to tackle the rebels.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in two decades of fighting since LRA chief Joseph Kony took up arms, initially against the Ugandan government.
Long since driven out of Uganda, the quasi-religious cult has carved out a vast region of control in the dense forests of northeast DRC, south Sudan and CAR.
The Central African Republic has called on the United States for military support to help “neutralise” LRA rebels terrorising the country, state radio said Monday.
Rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army “have been on Central African territory since February 2008 when they were chased out of Uganda, and have been committing violations of all kinds and sowing terror among the population,” it quoted Foreign Minister Antoine Gambi as saying.
In May, US President Barack Obama promulgated a law to develop a comprehensive strategy to protect civilians from LRA attacks in the four countries in which they have been active, Uganda, DR Congo, south Sudan and the CAR.
Hollywood action superstar Gerard Butler will soon be playing the role of real-life AK-47-toting Pastor Sam Childers in 2012’s “Machine Gun Preacher,” according to the Internet Movie Database.
A former bike gang member and drug dealer, Childers underwent a massive spiritual transformation in 1992, during a revival at an Assembly of God church .
Six years later he visited the Sudan where the Ugandan sectarian militant group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Koney, had abducted and tortured an estimated 30,000 children and displaced 1.6 million people since the start of the rebellion in 1986.
For the past 12 years, the so-called “unconventional American pastor” has lived and operated in Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda. His Angels of East Africa children’s village has become a safe haven for rescued children.
At least 321 people were killed and hundreds were abducted in one of the worst massacres by Africa’s most feared rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December.
The attack — which was unreported until now — confirms that the LRA has restarted terrorising the region despite losing its bases in Sudan a few years ago, when Khartoum, its main backer, signed a peace deal with south Sudanese rebels.
Associated Press reports that the mother of one of Africa’s most notorious rebel leaders relayed one last wish for her son before her death Wednesday, according to a nurse at her deathbed: Make peace.
Norah Anek, 86, the mother of Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, died after a long illness, said nurse Betty Akello, who was with her when she died. Her son heads the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army, which has waged one of Africa’s longest and most brutal rebellions, in northern Uganda.
Marauding bands of guerrillas have crucified seven Christians during a series of raids on villages in Sudan.
One of the men was tied to a tree and mutilated while six other victims were nailed to pieces of wood fastened to the ground and killed.
Villagers who found their bodies near the town of Nzara said it was like a “grotesque crucifixion scene”.
Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio has now appealed for international help to stop the attacks by members of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Sudanese Christians have urged fellow believers around the world to pray for them as armed groups are kidnapping and killing church leaders and other Christians, an advocacy group with close knowledge about the situation told BosNewsLife Tuesday.
Christians, who comprise just about 18 percent of Sudan’s mainly Muslim population of nearly 39 million people, are increasingly in the crossfire as many of them abandoned Islam, rights groups say.