Peace and Conflict Update

Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader Joseph Kony is thought to be hiding in the Central African Republic after Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) officials received word that his army had been looting food in the Eastern region of Hout-Mbomou. Constant pursuit of the LRA has left them little time to regroup and strengthen, UPDF Chief General Aronda Nyakairima said.

Days following a massive troop reduction of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the DRC Country Director for the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Max Hadorn, has deemed security to be the unstable country’s primary issue. The Eastern region of the DRC has seen an influx of LRA-related violence in recent months, with nearly 600 people being abducted and killed this year alone. Alan Doss, head of the UN mission to the DRC, notes that the LRA is currently one of their biggest concerns. Doss was quick to highlight the importance of domestic support in regards to regional development, stating that the UN “can push out an armed group but if the state doesn’t come in with police, justice, roads, schools, then it won’t make a big difference.”

Victims of the LRA insurgency in Northern Ugandan could be receiving financial compensation from the government of Uganda. Ahead of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections being held next February, the Museveni administration has promised to compensate about 10,000 of the LRA’s severely maimed victims.