Describes events through 11 March 2015
An LRA attack in Naibiapai, Western Equatoria State (WES), took place in early March 2015, the first in that village in three years. According to local officials, an LRA group likely travelling from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), attacked Nabiapai on the night of 3 March, killing one and abducting 13 people. At least nine were later released after self-defense forces engaged the group, reportedly killing one fighter.
Located in Gangura Payam, Yambio county, Nabiapai sits close to the DRC border. While the village itself has not been attacked since 2012, the local population has been wary of LRA attacks since 2009 when LRA groups based in DRC’s Province Orientale launched frequent attacks that caused a massive displacement of Nabiapai residents to Yambio, the WES capital. LRA attacks in the vicinity of Nabiapai, on the DRC side, have kept large numbers of former Nabiapai residents away from their homes. In May and July of 2014 groups of people travelling from Orientale to Nabiapai market—a significant hub of economic activity in the region—were attacked and looted by LRA elements.
Attacks in South Sudan, however, remain sporadic, with the majority of LRA violence taking place in DRC. The LRA have targeted various locations in Province Orientale’s Haut-Uele region. Numerous attacks were registered along the Duru-Bitima axis throughout February, including the presumed death of a soldier in the Congolese national army on 28 February 2015. A unit of about 13 armed LRA fighters is likely responsible for his death and the abduction of at least 9 people from Bitima in early March 2015. The LRA reportedly killed three people in Nangume, Dungu territory, on 2 March 2015.
At least one LRA group located north of Gwane, near the CAR border in Province Orientale’s Bas-Uele region has also attacked civilians and looted property in February and early March 2015. One particularly brutal attack took place on 17 February in Sukadi where the LRA abducted two women and injured one man. On 22 February the same LRA group clashed with forces from the Congolese army north of Gwane. One LRA fighter was reportedly killed.
LRA activity was also registered in the southeast of Central African Republic (CAR). There were several incidents reported on 10, 17, and 20 February 2015, in Agoumar and Selim, near the town of Rafai in Mbomou prefecture. Six bodies were found near Agoumar on 17 February, reportedly hunters killed by armed forces believed to be part of the LRA. Local sources claimed that the recent increase in violence is not solely attributable to the LRA but also due to a combination of forces described as ‘foreign Muslim elements’ from Sudan or Chad. Locals are also concerned that the nomadic cattle herders known as Mbororo are involved in the recent attacks.
The Ugandan anti-LRA forces in CAR reportedly attacked an LRA group operating north of Mboki, in CAR’s Haut-Mbomou prefecture in late February. According to media reports and the Ugandan army commander Michael Kabango, on 28 February 2015, Ugandan forces killed five members of a 30-strong LRA group, 75 km north of Mboki. Kabango did not provide identities of those killed but another Ugandan army source claimed they were part of the command structure of the larger group. There are concerns that the Ugandan army has hindered the possible defection of the entire group of 30, who had expressed a desire to abandon the LRA ranks and surrender peacefully in Obo. Local actors working on encouraging defections of LRA fighters noted that the death of the five at the hands of the Ugandan army could significantly roll back any gains made in the aftermath of the surrender of commander Dominic Ongwen in early 2015.
Ongwen is currently in The Hague awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda conducted a visit in Uganda at the end of February as part of the case against Onwgen. Bensouda’s visit to Northern Uganda prompted fresh calls for investigations in the behavior of the Ugandan army during the LRA conflict. ‘The atrocities in northern Uganda were committed by both the government troops and LRA rebels. We need fresh investigations and prosecution of both actors,’ Hellen Akello, a survivor of a 2004 LRA massacre of 300 people in Barlonyo, Lira District, told Bensouda during a community meeting, according to media reports. The ICC has indicted only LRA commanders for violence in Northern Uganda, including LRA leader Joseph Kony, whose whereabouts are unknown, and Ongwen.
The LRA is still capable of abusing civilians in Central Africa. According to a report from ‘The Resolve, the LRA Crisis Initiative,’ a non-governmental organization documenting LRA behavior over the last few years, LRA violence in 2014 increased in relation to the two previous years. Attacks and abductions in 2014 increased by 10% and 32%, respectively, from 2013. Yet the LRA fighting force continues to decline in numbers, down to about 150 armed men of Ugandan origin, according to the US organization. There were some 800 armed Ugandan-origin LRA fighters at the end of 2008 when the Ugandan army commenced operations against LRA bases in DRC’s Garamba National Park. In the face of declining numbers, Kony has encouraged the promotion of non-Ugandan fighters to junior officer ranks as well as his own sons to senior leadership positions.
16 March 2015
