An activist group has expressed alarm at a ‘surge’ in child abductions and violence allegedly carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army in eastern Central Africa near the borders with Sudan and South Sudan.
In a press release today, the group says that the LRA has already abducted nearly twice as many people in the Central African Republic (CAR) so far in 2016 than they did in all of 2015.
“The LRA Crisis Tracker, a project of Invisible Children and The Resolve LRA Crisis Initiative, has recorded 217 abductions by the LRA in eastern CAR since 1 January 2016. 54 of these abductees have been children, of which 41 remain in captivity or otherwise unaccounted for,” reads the press release.
The group warned that the LRA could try to force these children to serve as soldiers, ‘wives’, or camp laborers. Otherwise, they might release the children after making them transport goods for them.
The group also says that LRA attacks and abductions persist in Congo, driven by elephant poaching.
An LRA splinter group led by Achaye Doctor has carried out attacks in Congo’s Bas Uele province, according to the NGO, including several attacks in which children were abducted.
However, the group says that LRA attacks are down overall in Congo after peaking from January-August 2015. “Should Kony order another poaching mission to Garamba [National Park], LRA violence in Congo could increase again,” reads the statement.
Paul Ronan, who works on the LRA Crisis Tracker initiative, says that the continuing attacks in Central Africa show the resilience of the LRA and prove that the group is still a threat to civilians.
He says that the LRA attacks in eastern CAR in early 2016 included an attack in which LRA forces burned down most of the village of Zabe, as well as an attack in which they looted a Catholic mission in Bakouma and harassed several Latin American nuns.
Central African Republic is home to a UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSCO, as well as the African Union’s counter-LRA Regional Taskforce (AU RTF), which is supported by the United States military.
File photo: Former LRA commander Caesar Achellam