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Army happy with Sudan protocol on LRA

The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) is pleased with the recent agreement that Uganda has signed with Sudan, which allows its army to pursue the rebel Ugandan Lords Resistance Army (LRA) inside Sudanese territory where it has its bases. It is hopeful that related military operations could directly result in the rescue of between 2,000 and 4,000 Ugandan children believed to be held as captives of the rebel group in southern Sudan, according to army spokesman Shaban Bantariza. The LRA has abducted nearly 10,000 children, to be used as soldiers or sex slaves and porters for looted goods, and thousands of them are believed to have died in captivity, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on 5 March. A registration system supported by the agency has put the number of abducted children still missing at 5,555. Besides the abductions, it is estimated that approximately 398,806 people still live as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northern Ugandan districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader as a result of the LRA insurgency, according to a February 2002 humanitarian update from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). There had been a reported lull in LRA activity for months, which had even encouraged displaced people to think of returning to their home areas, but there has been another upsurge since mid- to late-February, according to news and humanitarian sources. Bantariza on Monday confirmed reports of a weekend attack on Gulu by armed gangs believed to be splinter groups of the LRA - in which five people were killed and 30 others abducted, according to Ugandan media. Bantariza said he could not confirm the number of casualties or those abducted in the raid. The groups that have been carrying out attacks have been prevented from crossing into Sudan - where the majority of the LRA is based - by the heavy presence of the Ugandan army across the border, and have continued to carry out food raids on the local population, he said. "These people have been detached from Kony for more than three years. They retained their weapons and are now staying within the population. But they can't even be called groups, because they are not organised," Bantariza added. Local and international media organisations reported last week that the Sudanese government had allowed Uganda to execute a "limited" military operation inside its territory, following the signing of a protocol between the two countries. Under its provisions, the Ugandan army could pursue and attack the LRA from Sudanese army bases in southern Sudan, they said. The UPDF and the Sudan Peoples Armed Forces (SPAF) had, as a result, formed a joint anti-LRA liaison team in the northern Ugandan district of Gulu, the government-owned New Vision reported in Kampala on Friday, 15 March. "We are happy about the protocol and we are going to do whatever we can to achieve our goal," UPDF Information and Public Relations Director Shaban Bantariza told IRIN on Monday. "It is a necessary operation because it is directed at rescuing our abducted children." The New Vision reported on Tuesday that extra Ugandan officers had already been deployed in former camps of Joseph Kony's LRA in the Jabalein and Nisitu areas of southern Sudan, that the army went on the offensive on Sunday night and that Ugandan soldiers have been told to consider all LRA fighters as captives to be rescued. The paper said the Ugandan army had "big guns, several tanks and thousands of troops" in its anti-LRA tactical headquarters at Ngomoromo on the Sudan border, about 40 km north of Kitgum town. UPDF Commander James Kazini and the overall operations commander of the anti-Kony mission, Brigadier Nyakairima Aronda, had moved from Gulu to Ngomoromo on Sunday, it said. The Khartoum government has given the Ugandan army until 2 April to mop up an area of up to 100 km inside Sudan (up to the Western Equatoria state capital of Juba) and flush out elements of the LRA group, which at one time enjoyed support from the Sudanese government, AFP news agency reported on Sunday. Bantariza confirmed to IRIN that that military operation, scheduled to begin on Monday 18 March, would limited to 14 days in accordance with the protocol. He also confirmed the presence of a Sudanese team in the northern town of Gulu to monitor the progress of the operation. "Our operations must be open. The Sudanese team in Gulu are witness to whatever we shall do inside Sudan. They must verify and ensure that whatever we do is in accordance with the protocol signed in Khartoum," the New Vision quoted him as saying. Meanwhile, the Ugandan government has announced that it will deploy a new battalion numbering 1,600 soldiers to "flush out Kony's rebels" from southern Sudan, the independent Monitor newspaper reported in Uganda on Friday, 15 March. While inside Sudan, the UPDF would take care not get into any activities of the Sudan People's Liberation Movements/Army (SPLM/A), the main Sudanese rebel group fighting Khartoum in southern Sudan, it added. The combined approach against the LRA follows a warming of relations between Sudan and Uganda in recent months, with both restoring diplomatic relations and committing themselves to stop supporting the other's rebel movements.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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