The UN agency for refugees UNHCR expressed alarm at the upping of brutality by Ugandan rebels in South Sudan, DR Congo and Central African Republic where they murdered thousands of defenceless civilians.
Melissa Fleming, UNHCR spokeswoman, said today in Geneva, Switzerland, that field offices reported a dramatic rise in the frequency and brutality of the Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) attacks against civilians.Ms. Fleming defined the LRA as an awful, murderous group with the purpose to terrorise, rape and kill with unimaginable brutality.
UNHCR says that since March 137 people were killed by the LRA in brutal attacks in South Sudan, DR Congo and Central African Republic.
Ms. Fleming added that there are claims that the LRA was reduced in size but their killing power is stronger with this rise in brutality.
UNHCR said that since December 2008, the LRA rebels killed up to 2,500 people and displaced 87,800 in South Sudan.
In DR Congo the figures are as dramatic: over 1,800 people were killed and some 280,000 displaced by attacks that left their villages in ashes.