Two killed in LRA attack on northern IDP camp

Two people, including a baby, were killed on Saturday when a large group of rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) raided an internally displaced persons' (IDP) camp in the northern district of Kitgum, officials said. The attack took place at the remote camp of Agoro, which borders Sudan, about 60 km north of Kitgum, itself some 450 km north of the capital, Kampala. "It was an uncharacteristically huge group of between 75 and 100 fighters. They took the army by surprise and they momentarily withdrew, but some SPLA [southern Sudan People's Liberation Army] fighters who had come to the camp to do business engaged the attackers," Mohammed Siryon, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Kitgum, said. One victim, a baby, was being carried on its mother's back when it was hit in the head during crossfire between the SPLA and LRA, he added. The child's mother also was shot, though not fatally, during the exchange. The second fatality was a Sudanese national believed to have been an SPLA fighter. Although he could not give the exact amount of food stolen during the raid, Siryon said it was from the school-feeding programme of the UN World Food Programme. The military spokesman in the region, Lt Tabaro Kiconco, confirmed the attack and looting of the food but said he did not have details of casualties from the attack. The rebels, Kiconco added, had launched their attack from Sudan, widely believed to be the base of the LRA and its leader Joseph Kony. The LRA has waged a 19-year war against the government of President Yoweri Museveni, and relief agencies estimate that the rebels have abducted more than 20,000 children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves. The conflict has forced more than 1.4 million people in northern Uganda into IDP camps across the region. The army recently claimed that the LRA was seriously weakened, and said the latest attacks were a desperate attempt by the group to remain in the limelight.