Thread: 30 Schoolgirls Abducted in Night Dorm Raid

Uganda Rebels Abduct Schoolgirls in Night Raid
By Paul Busharizi

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news.../084480624.htm


KAMPALA (Reuters) - Rebels, fighting to install rule in Uganda according to the Biblical 10 commandments, abducted 30 schoolgirls in a raid in the east of the country on Monday night, an army spokesman said on Wednesday.

The girls seized in the ambush on the Lwala Girls Secondary School in Kabermaido district, about 100 miles northeast of the capital, Kampala, were aged between 12 and 18.

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, has been fighting the government in northern Uganda since 1987.

The group has earned a terrifying reputation for abducting children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves, and for maiming villagers.


Army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza said initial fears that 100 girls had been taken have been scaled down but added that around 30 were still unaccounted for.


"We now think that the girls herded away by the LRA are about 30," Bantariza said.


The LRA has generally been most active in northern Uganda, but in the past week attacks further south of its traditional area of operation have caused mounting concern.


"This is the greatest level of insecurity the rebels have created in the last 17 years," opposition MP Aggray Awori told Ugandan radio. "The rebels seem to be getting stronger and the army is unable to handle the situation."


BUS AMBUSH


Hours after the raid on the school, the rebels ambushed a Kampala-bound bus on the road a few kilometers south, killing one person and injuring several. The army said it believed the same rebels were responsible for both attacks.


President Yoweri Museveni last year launched a major offensive against the LRA, deploying thousands of soldiers backed by tanks, helicopters and artillery. It has so far failed to crush the rebels.


Museveni said last week the rebels were attacking eastern Uganda to divert the army's attention from the north.


He also warned northern neighbor Sudan against breaking a 1999 accord in which both countries pledged to stop supporting each other's rebels.


Army spokesman Bantariza said troops which had recently pulled out of the Democratic Republic of Congo had been deployed in the north and fresh troops were being sent to the east.



06/25/03 08:43

Oh yeah, that's REAL 10 Commandment like