Massacres meted out by the LRA against remote communities in Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the past year have been among the worst in the LRA’s 20-year bloody history.
New figures show that over the past two years the LRA has become the most deadly militia in the DRC.
In the last year alone more than 1,000 people have been killed or abducted in nearly 200 separate attacks in two remote districts of DRC .
On Christmas Eve 2008 and over the following three weeks, 865 women, men and children were savagely beaten to death and hundreds more abducted by the LRA in north-eastern DRC and southern Sudan.
Last Christmas, between December 14 and 17 2009, LRA commanders oversaw the killing of more than 300 people.
“It is unbelievable that world leaders continue to tolerate brutal violence against some of the most isolated villages in central Africa and that this has been allowed to continue for more than 20 years,” said Marcel Stoessel, Head of Oxfam in DRC.
“This Christmas families in north-eastern Congo will live in fear of yet another massacre, despite the presence of the world’s largest peacekeeping mission.”
“The LRA is highly mobile and attacks women as they perform their daily tasks fetching water or tending to their fields and children as they return from school. The LRA abducts, mutilates, rapes and kills women, men and children, using extreme violence against the most vulnerable,” the agencies said,
The new report, Ghosts of Christmas Past was launched by 19 humanitarian and human rights organisations who say the safety and welfare of women, men and children across the vast LRA-affected area must finally be given the decisive attention it demands.
“The LRA is mostly comprised of abducted or coerced adults and children who have been forced to commit horrific acts against their community, making it impossible for them to return home. Children are forced to kill and rape, and many are used as ‘sex slaves,’ said Mark Waddington CEO of War Child UK.
“This must not be allowed to continue. The international community must work harder to implement the recommendations in the report and promote the safe release of LRA abductees and support their reintegration back into their families and daily life, particularly girls, who are often neglected in such processes.”
The organisations that launched the report are: Broederlijk Delen, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Conciliation Resources, Cordaid, Danish Refugee Council, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Intersos, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Pax Christi Flanders, Peace Direct, Refugees International, Resolve, Society For Threatened Peoples, Tear fund, Trocaire, War Child UK, and World vision.
Source: news24