Ugandan Rebel Group Kills 192

Scores of rebels armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a refugee camp in northern Uganda, killing 192 people and wounding dozens more, local officials said Sunday.

Saturday’s attack on Barloonyo camp in Lira district was one of the worst in recent years by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has been fighting the Ugandan government for 18 years.

As the insurgents surrounded the camp on three sides, many people ran to their mud-and-grass huts instead of trying to escape and were burned to death when the rebels set fire to the homes, lawmaker Charles Anjiro said.

“It’s a hopeless situation. We went there this morning with the Lira district police commander and physically counted 192 bodies,” Anjiro said by phone from the town of Lira, about 150 miles north of the capital, Kampala. “The scene is terrible.”

The chief administrative officer of northern Lira district, Daniel Odwedo, confirmed the death toll.

The camp was home to about 5,000 people displaced by the insurgency, which has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes.

The camp was being guarded by members of a local defense force, who were outnumbered and outgunned, Army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza said.

It was not possible to contact the Lord’s Resistance Army, which is led by self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony. The group -- notorious for cutting off villagers’ lips and hacking off their limbs -- has kidnapped thousands of people, including children, for use as slaves, wives or fighters.

The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. Estimates of the group’s size range from hundreds to a few thousand.

After the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, President Bush put the group, which rarely makes contact with the outside world, on a list of organizations suspected of having links to terrorism.

An army spokesman in the region, 2nd Lt. Chris Magezi, said government forces were pursuing the rebels. He said the attack appeared to be one of the worst rebel assaults in recent years. In 1995, the rebels rounded up more than 300 villagers in Gulu district and killed them, he said.

The LRA, which has wreaked havoc across Uganda’s north and northeast, rose from the remnants of a revolt by soldiers from the Acholi tribe after President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, seized power in 1986 after leading a five-year bush war. The Acholi tribe is dominant in northern Uganda.

Most of the rebels had given up by 1988, but those who did not coalesced into the LRA.

The rebels used to launch attacks into northern Uganda from neighboring Sudan, mainly raiding villages and attacking military posts. But in March 2002, the Sudanese government agreed to allow Ugandan troops to cross the border to destroy rebel bases.

The operation drove the rebels into northern Uganda, where they renewed their attacks on villages and camps. The insurgency spread last year to Uganda’s east.

The government attempted to hold peace talks with the rebels last year, but the insurgents, who say they are defending Acholi interests, refused to gather in government-designated areas, so the talks never occurred.