Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - Caritas has launched a reintegration project for more than 28,000 victims of the violence of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Bondo and Butu, in Bas-Uele District of Oriental Province, in northern east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the project aims to improve food security, allowing to revitalize agriculture through the provision of equipment and seeds, as well as improving access to markets through the reactivation of 84 km of roads.
According to data on behalf of OCHA, since the beginning of 2012 more than 3,000 people have been displaced as a result of LRA attacks in the districts of Bas-Uele and Haut- Uele. Since the beginning of the year LRA has led a dozen attacks in the area, the last one was on March 8, 2012, one person was killed and 17 kidnapped.
The LRA has jumped to the news world, thanks to a video posted on the Internet, entitled "Kony 2012", produced by the American NGO "Invisible Children" (see Fides 10/03/2010). Joseph Kony is the LRA leader, wanted since 2005 by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The LRA in particular is notorious for civilian kidnapping committed during attacks on villages. The group, originally from Northern Uganda, has extended its zone of action to the north-east of the DRC and in some areas of southern Sudan and the Central African Republic.
According to data from OCHA and UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), since 2008 attacks carried out by the LRA in the DRC have caused the internal displacement of 320,000 people, while some 30,000 Congolese citizens have sought refuge in the Central African Republic and South Sudan. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/3/2012)
