UN Security Council demands “immediate end” to LRA attacks

The UN Security Council on Monday demanded “an immediate end to all attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA),” and urged the armed group operating in four African countries to “release all those abducted, disarm and demobilise.”In a presidential statement issued in New York, the 15-nation UN body “reiterates its strong condemnation of the appalling attacks and war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the LRA and its violation of international humanitarian law and abuses of human rights.”“The council condemns further the LRA’s recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, killing and maiming, rape, sexual slavery and other sexual violence, and abductions,” the statement said.The LRA is notorious for carrying out massacres in villages, abducting boys for use as child soldiers and forcing girls into sexual slavery. Formed in the 1980s in Uganda, the group, for over 15 years, mainly directed its attacks against Ugandan civilians and security forces, who dislodged it in 2002. It then exported its activities to Uganda’s neighbours.Classified among the terrorist groups by the US, the LRA operates in four African countries, namely Uganda, Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan. Its leader, Joseph Kony, and some of his close confidants are being sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and crimes against humanity.The UN and the African Union have put together a joint mission to fight the rebels, and the US has also sent a team of 100 officers to support the operation to track down the rebel leaders.“The Security Council reiterates its support for the African Union Regional Cooperation Initiative against the LRA and commends the significant progress” made by the African Union and relevant organisations,” the statement said.