Africa

Africa

Security Council urges further actions by African countries to end threat by LRA

30 May 2013 00:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The UN Security Council on Wednesday called for more efforts from four Central African countries to end the threat posed by the Lord's Resistance Army ( LRA), which the United Nations said has killed more than 100,000 people during a reign of terror in Central Africa over the past 25 years, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The 15-nation UN body made the appeal in a presidential statement issued here.

"The Security Council underlines the primary responsibility of States in the LRA-affected regions to protect civilians," the statement said. "In this regard, the Council welcomes the efforts undertaken by the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of South Sudan and Uganda to end the threat posed by the IRA, and urges further efforts from these countries, as well as from other countries in the region."

Earlier last week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his report to the Security Council that "the report finds that the LRA is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths and that between 60, 000 and 100,000 children are believed to have been abducted" by the armed rebel group.

The LRA has raged across these four Central African countries, and is now believed holed up in Kafia Kingi, Sudan.

Over the past three years, the operations led by Uganda and supported by the United States helped reduce the LRA's killings of civilians by more than 90 percent and enabled dozens of LRA fighters and abductees to safely defect from the group, according to reports.

The LRA mayhem continues to haunt the region with no quick fix solutions yet. Even with the direct U.S. intervention, there is no clear time frame as of when the conflict would end.

In the new presidential statement, the Security Council reiterated its strong condemnation of the attacks and atrocities carried out by the LRA and its violation of international humanitarian law and abuses of human rights.

"The Council condemns further the LRA's recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, killing and maiming, rape, sexual slavery and other sexual violence, and abductions," the statement said.

"The Council demands an immediate end to all attacks by the LRA and urges the LRA to release all those abducted, disarm and demobilise," said the statement.

Meanwhile, the Security Council also "expressed concern at "the recent pause of counter-LRA operations in the CAR in the context of the current crisis in the country due to the seizure of power by force on 24 March 2013 by the Seleka coalition as well as the ensuing violence and looting, which worsened the humanitarian and security situation and weakened the institutions of the Central African Republic," the statement said.

Seleka seized power on March 24 in the CAR, toppling President Francois Bozize, who has been in exile abroad ever since. The takeover is seen by African countries as a coup.