Landmine blows up bus, kills four

At least four people were killed on Tuesday and 25 others injured in Pader district of northern Uganda, when a landmine blew up the bus they were travelling in, news agencies reported. The anti-tank mine had been planted on the road by rebels of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), an insurgent group in northern Uganda, moments before the bus, which was travelling southwards to the capital, Kampala, passed by, the agencies reported. LRA fighters who were hiding in the bush reportedly shot at passengers who attempted to flee after the bus overturned, the agencies said. The injured were reported to have been taken to hospital in neighbouring Kitgum district. Deus Mutakirida, the Deputy Resident District Commissioner for Kitgum, told IRIN it was the first time a landmine had exploded in northern Uganda in at least 10 years. He said the army had been deployed to detect any more mines in the area. Mutakirida, however, noted that such an operation was too expensive and the army was short of mine-sweeping equipment. "This issue of mines is a bit complicated. Unless we deal with the right vehicles, we can't detect the mines. But we are doing what we can," he said. Pader is one of the districts worst affected by the LRA insurgency. The group, which uses civilians as its main target in its war against the government of President Yoweri Museveni, seeks to establish a government ruled according to the Biblical Ten Commandments. The insurgency, which began in the late 1980s, has displaced an estimated 800,000 people who live in several protected camps in northern Uganda.