ICC needs more time to register victims of former LRA’s Dominic Ongwen

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The Victims Participation and Reparations Section (VPRS) at the International Criminal Court (ICC) says it needs more time to complete the registration of the victims of Dominic Ongwen, the former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander.

The registration of the victims, estimated at 49,772, commenced in June last year and is expected to end in February next year.

This development followed the February 28, 2024, Trial Chamber IX of the ICC ordering reparations for the harm the victims suffered as a result of the crimes for which Ongwen was convicted.

They include those at the four case locations: Abok, Lukodi, Pajule, and Odek, as well as the women who were abducted and distributed to the commanders under the Sinia Brigade that Ongwen commanded, and children abducted and conscripted into the rebel group.

However, the VPRS is seeking the extension of the deadline due to the overwhelming number of victims to be registered, according to VPRS Field Officer in Uganda, Agnes Gillian Ocitti.

“…the judges made the order for reparation and gave this process to take two years, and actually, one year is already done because we are already in 2025, July,” she explained, adding that, “…it should have originally ended next year in February…so we are now making requests for extension of time to fill the forms.”

Without being specific on how much more time is needed to complete the registration of the victims, Ocitti revealed that they have currently deployed clerks in all the affected districts in West Nile, Acholi, Lango, and Teso regions, who are filling forms for the victims at the household level and that each clerk is to fill at least 64 forms per day.

“I am not exactly sure what the legal team is presenting to the judges, but it is something they have already notified us that they are requesting for the extension of time,” she said.

“But we also want to see by the end of the year, how far we have gone with filling the forms,” Ocitti added.

Ocitti was speaking on Monday, 21, 2025, during the regional stakeholders’ dialogue in commemoration of International Justice Day and the adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC.

The event that took place at Gracious Palace Hotel in Lira city brought together some LRA victims, local leaders, officials from civil society organisations, academia, cultural and religious leaders, among others.

Nelson Onono Onweng, the Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Northern Uganda and the former chairperson of the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative (ARLPI), asked the Government to step in and support the LRA victims, since it was its responsibility to protect them during the two-decade insurgency.

Northern regional assistant to the Mufti, Sheikh Musa Khalil, appealed to the ICC and other stakeholders to lobby for more resources to support the victims who will miss the reparations in Ongwen’s case.

Ongwen was on February 4, 2021 found guilty of 61 crimes comprising crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Northern Uganda between July 1, 2002, and December 31, 2005. He was later sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

On December 18, 2023, Ongwen was transferred to Norway, where he is serving his jail term.

The Chamber set his financial liability to € 52,429,000 and ordered collective community-based reparations focused on rehabilitation and symbolic/satisfaction measures, consisting of collective rehabilitation programmes, as well as a symbolic award of €750 for all eligible victims and other community symbolic measures.

The Chamber estimated the number of potentially eligible direct and indirect victims of Ongwen to be approximately 49,772.