The Barbarity of the Lord's Resistance Army

Submitted by kennedy@genocid... on Tue, 03/30/2010 - 9:10am

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch released a new report on atrocities that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels committed in the northeastern DR Congo during December 2009. The report, “Trail of Death”, details the massacre of more than 300 people in the Congo’s Haute Uele region last December.

Over a four-day period in December 2009, the LRA rampaged through a 105 kilometer swath of Haut Uele’s Niangara territory (maps available here). During this time, the rebels posed as Ugandan or Congolese soldiers, first re-assuring people in order to gather together village residents. After locals had congregated, the LRA tied victims up in human chains and forcibly abducted them. At approximately the same time, the rebels appeared to have looted towns for supplies and killed those who were considered of little use. It appears that the purpose of these repeated raids was to kill civilians, loot supplies and replenish the LRA’s force through forced recruitment. “Trail of Death” lays out the atrocities in gruesome detail, highlighting the threat that even small groups of rebels pose to civilians throughout Central Africa.

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