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Uganda rebels kill 400 in DRC

KINSHASA, Dec 30 – Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels killed more than 400 people in Christmas massacres in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caritas aid charity said on Tuesday.

The targets included a town where a Christmas Day concert was being held and a Roman Catholic church and that attacks were going on along the Sudanese border, the group said in a statement.

Caritas workers say that "over 400 people have been killed in the attacks in an area of northern Congo including Faradje, Duru, Gurba, Doruma, and Province Orientale."

"The director of Caritas Dungu-Doruma says that the Ugandan rebels attacked a Christmas Day concert in Faradje City organised by the Catholic church there," the statement said.

"He says the rebels returned the next morning to continue their killing spree. He says approximately 150 people were killed over the two days.

"At the same time, another attack was perpetrated in Duru, north of Dungu. Caritas reports 75 people killed and the church burned down."

Troops from Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and southern Sudan have launched a military operation in the stricken region to find LRA leader Joseph Kony, who is wanted by a UN war crimes tribunal.

Caritas reported that killing continued along the Sudan border, including in Bangadi, Doruma and Gurba. In Bangadi 48 people died and in Gurba 213 people were killed. Approximately 6,500 people have found refuge in the area with the Catholic church, the charity said.

It added that children were being abducted by the LRA, who use them as child soldiers.

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The statement said that that the areas had been plundered, leaving local people in desperate need of aid.  It said that the number of dead bodies risked spreading disease.

United Nations aid workers in Kinshasa said that LRA had killed 189 civilians in the region.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced in Uganda in two decades of fighting between the Ugandan government and the LRA, which is notorious for abductions of children to be used as soldiers and sex slaves.

The Ugandan army said Sunday that rebels had massacred 45 civilians in a church Friday, most of them women, children and old people.

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