Five people were killed and two others injured when suspected Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels ambushed an aid agency's vehicle near Uganda's border with Sudan, an army spokesman said here Monday.
The rebels struck five kilometres (three miles) from the Sudan border on the Bibia-Adjumani access road on Saturday and burnt a vehicle belonging to Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an agency active in southern Sudan, Lieutenant Colonel Phinihas Katirima said.
"These people are heartless and they always turn to soft targets. The army cannot occupy each and every inch of ground to protect people, but if they were sensible, they would have targeted the army," Katirima told AFP.
It was the second suspected LRA attack in a week.
A group of rebels ambushed a bus near Pabo protected camp north of Gulu town last Monday. Six people were killed, 18 wounded and a number abducted.
After the first attack, local officials said it was not clear whether it was the work of the LRA, disgruntled local business people or soldiers.
But Gulu's local council chairman, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Ochora, who has been at the forefront of local peace efforts to bring rebels out of the bush, told AFP on Monday that three kidnapped people, including a 16-year-old youth, had escaped and confirmed that their abductors were rebels.
The LRA, led by spirit medium Joseph Kony, has fought government forces in the north since 1988 from camps in government-held territory in southern Sudan.
Rebel activity had declined markedly since January last year, when Sudan pledged to cut support for the LRA in return for Uganda severing its support for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The SPLA has battled Khartoum's forces since 1983 to end domination of mainly Christian and animist south Sudan by the Arabised, Muslim north.
In June this year, Ochora met a group of rebels operating inside Uganda and pledged to begin a peace process aimed at enticing the rebels out of the bush to take advantage of an amnesty law.
Ochora warned that not every LRA rebel is committed to peace, while there was also no proper control of all the rebels by LRA leaders.
"I have not talked to any of them since the ambushes, but in the course of the week, I will definitely get to know what is happening. At the moment most of the commanders have gone back to Sudan for a meeting. I am still optimistic (about peace)," Ochora added -- KAMPALA (AFP)
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