UNSC voices concern over CAR security
joseph kony

Joseph Kony

BANGUI. — The UN Security Council on Wednesday expressed concern about “the grave security situation in parts of Central Africa” and reiterated its strong condemnation of “the appalling attacks, war crimes and crimes against humanity” carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army in the region.

“The Security Council reiterates its strong condemnation of the appalling attacks, war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the LRA and its violations of international humanitarian law and abuses of human rights, including the LRA’s recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, killing and maiming, rape, sexual slavery and other sexual violence, and abductions,” the 15-nation UN body said in a presidential statement adopted here.

“The Council demands an immediate end to all attacks by the LRA and urges the LRA to release all those abducted, and to disarm and demobilise,” the statement said.

Classified among the terrorist groups by the United States, 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 after by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Long driven out of Uganda, small bands of LRA fighters now roam forest regions of the four African nations, launching more than 150 attacks and killing at least 22 people this year.

More than 160 000 people have been forced to flee from their homes in areas of the DRC, CAR and South Sudan where the rebels operate, including more than 30 000 living as refugees in neighbouring nations. The insurgents, who raid villages and enslave residents, have abducted 432 people so far this year, a “steady increase” from last year and more than double the number in 2012, the report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) read in November. Those captured, often children, are forced to work as fighters, sex slaves or porters.

Formed in the 1980s in Uganda, the LRA, for more than 15 years, mainly directed its attacks against Ugandan civilians and security forces, which dislodged it in 2002.

Meanwhile, the CAR’s interim President Catherine Samba Panza has once more appealed to the International Criminal Court to pursue crimes committed during the crisis in her country.

The president who returned to the capital Bangui on Wednesday, made the appeal in New York during the 13th Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute.

In September, the ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened investigations on the situation in Central African Republic, following a request from the country’s transition authorities in May this year.

“Since August 2014, the Central African Republic has been going through one of its worst armed conflict in its recent history,” she said — Xinhua

 

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