Uganda receives 16 more former rebel fighters repatriated from CAR
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E-mail Xinhua, August 16, 2023
KAMPALA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Uganda has received the second batch of 16 former fighters of the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels repatriated from Central African Republic (CAR), according to the military.
The former fighters, their spouses and children on Tuesday arrived at the Entebbe International Airport, about 40 km south of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, aboard a chartered flight, said the military.
The members of the faction who abandoned the rebellion against the Ugandan government after surrendering to the armed forces of the CAR were received by the Minister of State for Veteran Affairs Huda Abason Oleru at the Entebbe military airbase.
The minister applauded the ex-combatants of the rebel group for denouncing the over two-decade rebellion and LRA leader Joseph Kony.
"We thank you for choosing to come back to Uganda. You can stay in Uganda peacefully and enjoy the peace, nobody will touch you in this country. Peace is guaranteed to all of you," said Oleru.
Last month, Uganda received the first batch of 14 former fighters of the rebel group, their 14 wives, and 33 children who had been holed up in the jungles of the CAR.
The LRA is a Ugandan rebel group that waged a 20-year-long insurgency, killing tens of thousands of civilians, abducting more than 20,000 children as soldiers, porters and sex slaves, and displacing over 1.8 million people in northern Uganda, until it was driven out of the country by the military in 2006 after failed peace talks.
The rebel fighters fled to neighboring South Sudan and then the Democratic Republic of the Congo and CAR.
Its top leader Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, remains at large.
In May 2021, one of the five top LRA commanders wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Dominic Ongwen, was convicted and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment by the same court over similar charges.
Ongwen was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including sexual and gender-based crimes, which took place in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005. Enditem
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