Ugandan rebels massacre 100 villagers

Ugandan rebels burned and looted six villages in remote southern Sudan, killing at least 100 people and forcing some 15,000 to flee, a religious leader and Sudanese rebels said.

Lord’s Resistance Army rebels attacked the villages around the town of Madgwi, about 30 miles north of the Ugandan border, between June 25-27, said the Rev Paul Yugusuk, head of the Anglican Church. He said about 100 villagers were killed.

The Ugandan insurgents are believed to have bases in the area.

But the Equatoria Defence Force, a Sudanese rebel faction based in the area, said at least 122 people had been killed in six villages and 15,000 forced to flee their homes.

News of the massacre was only filtering out days later because the villages are located far from the region’s main towns, said Charles Kisanga, secretary-general of the Equatoria Defence Forces.

The Lord’s Resistance Army, waging an 18-year rebellion, claims to be fighting to overthrow Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, but the force mostly attacks civilians, steals food and abducts children for use as fighters or concubines.

The Ugandan rebels reportedly killed more than 40 people earlier in June in another series of attacks on several villages in southern Sudan.

In February, the insurgents shot, hacked and burned to death more than 250 people at a camp in northern Uganda for people displaced by fighting the region.