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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

UGANDA: Renewed fighting in east

KAMPALA, 11 August 2003 (IRIN) - Fresh fighting broke out over the weekend in eastern Uganda’s Katakwi district between the Ugandan defence forces and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, sparking speculation that the once-quiet district was now the target of a fullscale LRA offensive.

On Saturday rebels attacked the small town of Atirir, 15 km north of Soroti, razing buildings and looting the town’s clinic of its drug stocks.

In response, the Ugandan army said it moved quickly to close off the road immediately to the north of the area, before exchanging gunfire with suspected LRA rebels.

“They launched a terrorist attack on the town’s principal trading centre. Then our forces moved in to fight them back,” army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza told IRIN.

Other sources in Soroti said the rebels had gained partial control of the road linking Lira with Soroti and were laying down landmines to keep hold of it.

But the army denied this. “They’re not controlling anything,” said Bantariza. “It was us who closed the road in order to pursue them. There’s no evidence that they have planted landmines anywhere.”

He denied reports that the army had used a helicopter during another attack on Friday in Tubor sub-county, also in Katakwi, and that some civilians had been injured as a result.

Dr Bernard Odu of Soroti hospital, where the injured civilians were taken for treatment, told IRIN some of them had "patchy burns spread over their skin as would come from being too close to the heat of a bomb blast”.

Katakwi district was first attacked mid-June by the rebels as part of an unprecedented push to the east. Ever since then, it has suffered periodic LRA attacks against civilian targets.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

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