200809282127 | Ugandan rebels deny attacks

Ugandan rebels deny attacks

Nairobi - Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has denied reports it recently launched attacks and abducted children in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. "The recent media reports of LRA attacks are fabricated and dangerous imaginations formulated by those bent on stifling the current peace process between Uganda and LRA," rebel spokesperson David Nyekorach-Matsanga said in a statement.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) on Tuesday demanded the immediate release of 90 schoolchildren it said the LRA had abducted in DR Congo the previous week.

The LRA is notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to fight or become sex slaves.

Unicef also accused the LRA of killing villagers and abducting two Italian missionaries in the northeast of the sprawling nation, which borders Uganda.

Catholic aid agency CARITAS said that 75 000 civilians have fled the rebel group in DR Congo.

There have also been reports of attacks and abductions in South Sudan.

The Congolese army, backed up logistically by UN peacekeepers, earlier this month sent troops into northeast Congo to protect civilians from the LRA.

Nyekorach-Matsanga, however, said that there were many other armed militias operating in both DRC and South Sudan, and that the "malicious" reports should be cross-checked before blame was laid at the LRA's door.

The LRA, which is now holed up in a national park in northeast DR Congo, began peace talks to end its bloody rebellion two years ago.

However, it is yet to sign a final peace deal and is believed to have been using the time to rearm.

LRA leader Joseph Kony, a former lay preacher in his late 40s, says he will only sign the peace deal if the International Criminal Court removes indictments it slapped on him and four other LRA members for war crimes.

According to the court, the LRA is guilty of abductions, killings, rapes and the conscription of Ugandan children.

The LRA rebellion, which has stretched over decades, has seen tens of thousands killed or mutilated and several million displaced in Uganda. - Sapa-dpa