Priest killed in LRA ambush

A Sudanese-based Catholic priest, Fr Peter Obore Oromo, was killed on Saturday in an ambush on a commercial bus in northern Uganda by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), according to a press statement on Monday from the Catholic Diocese of Torit, South Sudan.

Obore was on his way from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, back to his parish of Loa/Nimule in the Diocese of Torit, after attending a seminar of Uganda Change Agency, when the attack occurred between Atiak and Bibia on Saturday afternoon, the diocese reported.

Details of the fate of the other passengers were not available, although the pick-up vehicle in which all were travelling was reportedly set ablaze by the LRA men, it added.

The late Fr Obore was the third Catholic priest killed by armed men along Ugandan border, the statement said, adding that Saturnino Obure Leopoldo Anywar were killed in January 1967 and November 1968 respectively, during the Anya-nya war.

Six people were killed and two seriously injured in early September when suspected LRA rebels ambushed a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) aid vehicle five kilometres from the Sudanese border on the Bibia-Adjumani road, northern Uganda.

Despite these incidents, there has been a general lull in rebel activity in northern Uganda in recent months, and particularly since June, according to humanitarian sources.

After 16 years of instability and sporadic internal conflict in Uganda, this year so far has seen political and social gains that have reduced the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance fall from 1.1 million to around 717,000 - the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported earlier this month.

The decrease was attributable to a number of factors, among them the resumption of diplomatic relations by Uganda and Sudan, and the latter's discontinuation of arms and logistical support for the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the north, it said.

The relative reduction of LRA attacks in northern Uganda left no room for complacency, but did at least allow some space for the consolidation of social, political and economic gains, according to OCHA.

There was now a need for "serious commitment towards political accommodation", as well as a joint government, donor and aid community "framework for recovery", which should include "heavy and long-overdue investment in peripheral, marginalised areas, it added.