Rebels mutilate women in northern Uganda

March 21, 2005 AFP report:

Insurgents of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) chopped off lips, ears and breasts of seven women in northern Uganda's Kitgum district.

The incident occurred near Patika camp for displaced people about 48 kilometres from Kitgum town, the state-run New Vision newspaper said.

"They (rebels) just cut off the breasts of the seven women," Walter Ocholla, the chairman of northern Gulu district, said.

The New Vision said the insurgents, who have been carrying out a brutal campaign against civilians in northern Uganda, also chopped off lips and ears of the women as they were collecting firewood.

The rebels also took an unknown number of women hostage while the mutilated women were admitted to a nearby health facility.

Army spokesman Lieutenant Kiconco Tabaro said soldiers were pursuing the attackers.

"Our forces are tracking the attackers to make sure that they are punished for the crimes they are committing against humanity," Lt Tabaro told the newspaper.

Last month, the rebels sliced the lips off eight women in another raid in northern Uganda.

Several attempts to sign a truce and launch formal peace talks have failed amid growing mistrust between the warring sides.

The LRA, which operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni's secular government since 1988, ostensibly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

It is notorious for its ruthlessness against the people of northern Uganda, where more than 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes and are living in camps.

The rebel group tends to grow its ranks by raiding camps for displaced people in northern Uganda and kidnapping children living there, forcing the boys into combat and the girls into sexual slavery.