Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
4 November 2008
Yambio — Almost unnoticed by the international community, a heavy massacre of innocent civilians is being carried out in Sudan's Western Equatoria state on the DR Congo boarder by the Ugandan Lord Resistance Rebels (LRA), a bishop says.
Catholic Bishop Eduardo Kussala of Tombura-Yambio says the LRA leader Joseph Kony and some of his lieutenants live in his diocese "Under the Protection of UN and the Government of South Sudan.
"They hope that by offering Kony refuge, they will placate the notorious killer to embrace dialogue. "This hope is in vein; instead he continuous to abduct, kill and loot the local people of Western Equatoria at will," Bishop Kussala said in a statement.
Since late September, Kony's rebel forces have been murdering, destroying and abducting several people in both Congo and Sudan, causing a heavy influx of refugees from Congo and internal displacement in Sudan.
Some 500 children have been abducted by the rebels, said Bishop Kussala. "In most villages or towns the entire civil infrastructure has collapsed and the civilian population - the population of refugees and internal refugees alike- is seeking refuge in churches and schools."
The ensuing humanitarian crisis has been deplorable, with the displaced people lacking basic supplies like food, water, sanitation and medicine. Among the trapped civilians are three Comboni missionaries, now residing in the bishop's house in Yambio.
The government of Western Equatoria State, the Catholic Church and other churches are trying to provide relief to the new arrivals, but the help available is not enough.
"The impact of the Ugandan rebels on Western Equatoria is indescribable and painful," Bishop Kussala says, adding that the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the war in South Sudan has not brought peace to Equatoria.
He issued an urgent appeal to the Sudanese government to speed relocate the LRA rebels away from Western Equatoria. The rebels should release the abducted children and women.
"I remind all sides (Sudan Government, Government for the Sudan, Government of Uganda, the LRA, IGAD, and the international community) about the standards of International Humanitarian Law which prescribe the protection of civilian population in war. Attacks on civilian areas, and shelters and abduction of the vulnerable are intolerable and have to stop immediately."
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