Vol. 8 Issue 7 - Public International Law & Policy Group

Last month, maimed victims of rebel attacks began arriving again in Bangadi. Again,
residents sent out urgent calls for help, using the town's sole satellite phone and its highfrequency
radio.
There had been no response by Jan. 22, when the rebels struck Bangadi for a second time.
By then, the self-defense group had swelled to 350, including Teke Mbanga, a 20-year-old
refugee from Kana village whose parents, 13 siblings and other family members were
slaughtered by the rebels.
The townspeople chased the rebels out, pursuing them for more than a half-mile (about a
kilometer) until they disappeared into the savannah. There were no civilian casualties and the
group even managed to rescue six abducted people.
One man bragged of skinning one of the rebels. Asked if he was alive at the time, he looked
sheepishly away.
"It was the people's anger that led to this revenge. We had the bodies of our families scattered
about us," said the man, who didn't want his name used for fear of rebel reprisals.
The rebel's body was burned in a public ceremony in the middle of the main road; the site has
been marked with a pile of stones topped by a red cross.
On Jan. 24, the army finally sent troops: 175 soldiers came to Bangadi.
Their presence is more of a worry than a reassurance, said Akoyo: The soldiers' rations have
run out and they haven't been paid. There's little food at the market because people fear going
to their fields. Nearly every day, there are reports of rebel attacks on surrounding villages
from refugees who continue to stream in.
"This is a dangerous situation," Akoyo said. "They haven't started yet, but soon, if they don't
get provisioned, they'll start requisitioning the little food we have."
LRA fighters trapped
Agence France Presse, 2/14/09
The remnants of the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army are trapped by opposing forces
in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and will have to surrender, a Congolese
government spokesman said Saturday.
"We think that Joseph Kony is with them," he said, referring to the head of the LRA, the
target of a joint operation by Congolese, Ugandan and south Sudanese forces launched in
December.
"The hard core of the Lord's Resistance Army is in a swampy forest in the Garamba national
park," spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP, putting their numbers at about 250.