LRA kill Sudanese chief
REBELS of the Lord’s Resistance Army have killed the chief of the Azande tribe in southern Sudan.
By Barbara Among
REBELS of the Lord’s Resistance Army have killed the chief of the Azande tribe in southern Sudan.
The rebels attacked Chief Gordon Jalal Ngirimo’s palace on Tuesday morning, killing the chief and an unidentified woman.
“The chief of Bamani in Ibba County in the Western Equatoria state was murdered by the LRA in his house at 2:00am on January 19,†said Charles Kisanga, the chairman of Western Equatoria Azande Community World-Wide Organisation.
The rebels, headed by Joseph Kony, also abducted two children before fleeing back to Garamba forest.
Ngirimo has been vocal in the fight against the LRA and had on several occasions called on the southern Sudan government to protect his community against the rebels.
“The death of Ngirimo at the hands of LRA testifies to the suffering of the people of Western Equatoria with nobody to defend them. The Southern Sudan government is careless and is busy with its tribal politics,†said Kisanga.
The slain chief is the son of His Majesty Ngirimo, who stopped the British colonialists from ruling the region at the beginning of the 20th Century.
A total of 120 people have been killed and over 100 kidnapped by the rebels in the western equatorial region since December 20.
The region is host to thousands of refugees from Congo after the LRA killed more than 625 people there last year.
In a statement released yesterday, the Azande community in the diaspora decried the act as “barbaric†and called on all men in the chiefdom to form vigilant groups to fight the LRA.
He said in Ezo County, about 8,000 were living with no shelter or food.
The LRA has been operating in Azande for almost a decade now. The Azande are found in Sudan, the DR Congo and the Central African Republic (CAR).
Last year, the rebels killed over 100 Azande in Obbo in the CAR. In Congo, the LRA killed Azande civilians along the upper Ulele river.
The LRA recently crossed into Southern Sudan from bases in Garamba National Park in Congo, where the Ugandan, Sudanese and Congolese armies have mounted a joint military offensive.
REBELS of the Lord’s Resistance Army have killed the chief of the Azande tribe in southern Sudan.
The rebels attacked Chief Gordon Jalal Ngirimo’s palace on Tuesday morning, killing the chief and an unidentified woman.
“The chief of Bamani in Ibba County in the Western Equatoria state was murdered by the LRA in his house at 2:00am on January 19,†said Charles Kisanga, the chairman of Western Equatoria Azande Community World-Wide Organisation.
The rebels, headed by Joseph Kony, also abducted two children before fleeing back to Garamba forest.
Ngirimo has been vocal in the fight against the LRA and had on several occasions called on the southern Sudan government to protect his community against the rebels.
“The death of Ngirimo at the hands of LRA testifies to the suffering of the people of Western Equatoria with nobody to defend them. The Southern Sudan government is careless and is busy with its tribal politics,†said Kisanga.
The slain chief is the son of His Majesty Ngirimo, who stopped the British colonialists from ruling the region at the beginning of the 20th Century.
A total of 120 people have been killed and over 100 kidnapped by the rebels in the western equatorial region since December 20.
The region is host to thousands of refugees from Congo after the LRA killed more than 625 people there last year.
In a statement released yesterday, the Azande community in the diaspora decried the act as “barbaric†and called on all men in the chiefdom to form vigilant groups to fight the LRA.
He said in Ezo County, about 8,000 were living with no shelter or food.
The LRA has been operating in Azande for almost a decade now. The Azande are found in Sudan, the DR Congo and the Central African Republic (CAR).
Last year, the rebels killed over 100 Azande in Obbo in the CAR. In Congo, the LRA killed Azande civilians along the upper Ulele river.
The LRA recently crossed into Southern Sudan from bases in Garamba National Park in Congo, where the Ugandan, Sudanese and Congolese armies have mounted a joint military offensive.