By Geoffrey Muleme
Kampala
Scores of rebels fighting a 17-year insurgency in northern Uganda had attacked a refugee camp, killing 172 people, a Catholic priest said yesterday.
Armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army attacked Barloonyo camp in Uganda's Lira district late Saturday, burning huts and shooting people as they fled, said Rev Sebhat Ayele, who visited the camp yesterday.
Ayele said he counted 121 bodies and was told another 51 had already been buried.
Army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza confirmed the attack, but said he did not know the death toll.
He said it was possible that more than 100 people were killed in the camp, which was home to about 5,000 people, 26km north of Lira town.
Many of the camp's inhabitants ran to their huts, rather than trying to escape, and were burnt alive as the rebels torched their houses, Ayele, an Eritrean, said by telephone from Lira town, 250km north of Kampala.
It was not possible to contact the Lord's Resistance Army, a shadowy group that has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, since he came to power in 1986 after a five-year bush war.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/23/1077384647926.html
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