Where is Uganda's wanted warlord Joseph Kony?

KAMPALA - Indicted Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, who has been on the run for decades, is down to just 20 or so fighters and is likely in Sudan's Darfur region, an expert on his insurgency told AFP.

Kony once held sway over the borderlands that connect Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic -- his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) responsible for some 100,000 deaths and 60,000 abductions, according to a United Nations estimate.

The self-proclaimed prophet and four of his deputies became the first people indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes in 2005.

The court finally began hearing charges against him on Tuesday.

But Kony has never been caught, despite a $5-million bounty on his head from the United States, which many of his followers have seen as proof of the mystical powers he professed to hold.

Kristof Titeca, a professor at the University of Antwerp, has closely tracked the LRA for years, speaking to many defectors including one of Kony's sons, Ali Kony, after his surprise surrender in 2023.

"The LRA these days is Joseph Kony and around 20 combatants with him and an unknown number of women and children. It's really very small compared to what it once was," said Titeca.

At its peak, the LRA had thousands of fighters, but there has been a steady flow of surrenders since a peace process collapsed in 2008, leading to concerted military operations against the group by Uganda, at times with the backing of US military advisors.

Since then, "they basically went into survival mode," said Titeca.

"They no longer did mass abductions or mass attacks because they attracted too much attention."

Being on the run also meant more opportunities for LRA abductees to escape, he said, while Kony's acolytes lost faith in his plans to overthrow Uganda's government.

Defectors say the group moved frequently, finding refuge in lawless regions like Darfur in Sudan, now embroiled in civil war, as well as the densely forested area of Mboki in Central African Republic (CAR).

"He's been surviving through illicit trade -- ivory, gold and diamonds," said Titeca, allowing him to buy the protection of local armed groups.

They also rely on more basic activities such as cultivating honey and marijuana for trade, he added.

Attacked by Russians 

In March 2024, a group of LRA members escaped in CAR and surrendered to a local armed group affiliated to Russian mercenaries of the Africa Corps, formerly known as the Wagner Group, which supports CAR's government.

A month later, the Russian mercenaries attacked a trading post nicknamed "Yemen" run mainly by LRA personnel in the same region of CAR.

But they missed Kony by just a few days, according to a report by a UN panel of experts supported by Titeca's interviews with defectors.

The Russians were likely not after the $5-million reward so much as a chance to "stick a geopolitical middle finger up to the US who have never managed to catch him after all these years", said Titeca.

Kony had once again eluded capture.

"After these attacks in CAR I think he's in South Darfur," said Titeca.
"His son and others don't believe he'll ever come out... or that he'll ever be caught," he added.