UGANDA-SUDAN: Sudanese government troops attack LRA in the south

KAMPALA, 12 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Sudanese government forces have recently attacked the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) - a Ugandan rebel group - in Mangala, south Sudan, Maj Shaban Bantariza, a Ugandan army spokesman, told IRIN on Monday.

"Early last week, Sudanese government forces attacked [LRA leader Joseph] Kony and his men in Mangala," Bantariza said. "We are still awaiting further information about fatalities."

Mangala is a village 60 km northeast of the southern Sudanese city of Juba.

Officials at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, could not confirm the attacks, but said the LRA had ambushed and robbed Sudanese civilians in southern Sudan last week.

Uganda’s army said recently that the LRA had been cornered in southern Sudan - that it was in danger of being attacked by Sudanese government troops if it moved northwards, and by John Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) if it moved southwards.

The Uganda government claims the LRA has used southern Sudan as a base for several years, only coming into northern Uganda to carry out ambushes on civilian or military targets before retreating to Sudan.

In March, the Ugandan army said it had received reports that Kony was among a group of LRA rebels fleeing southern Sudan, and thought to be heading for the Ethiopian border.

After the SPLM/A and the government of Sudan signed a peace agreement in January - ending 21 years of civil strife in the south - hope was ignited in northern Uganda that the LRA would no longer be able to use southern Sudan as a base.

The LRA has fought a 19-year war against the Uganda government, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed, and up to 1.6 million more displaced.

[ENDS]