VI. The Christmas Massacres

I saw the LRA kill our neighbor and another man in the road. I kept thinking who are these people? What have we done to them? Why are they killing us?

-A man attacked by the LRA and left for dead on Christmas Day at Faradje

Operation Lightning Thunder

Throughout 2008, as Joseph Kony repeatedly promised to sign the peace agreement and then did not do so, President Museveni and army leaders threatened to resort to a new military campaign against him.[74] DRC President Joseph Kabila initially opposed Ugandan military operations against the LRA on Congolese territory, but, under pressure from the United States and following the September LRA attacks, Kabila changed his mind. Once the November 29 deadline passed without Kony having signed the agreement, preparations moved ahead rapidly for a military operation involving Ugandan, Congolese, and SPLA troops. The US provided important intelligence, planning, technical, and logistical support.[75] The stated objectives of the operation, codenamed "Lightning Thunder," were to destroy or occupy LRA camps, to "search and destroy" LRA forces, to "search and rescue" persons abducted by the LRA, and to capture or kill LRA leaders, particularly those indicted by the ICC.[76]

The operation ran into difficulties from the beginning. It was planned to start with an aerial bombardment of Kony's base at Camp Kiswahili, on the western edge of Garamba National Park, by Ugandan specially adapted MIG fighter jets to be immediately followed by a ground assault by the UPDF. On the day of the attack, December 14, 2008, unexpected weather problems prevented the Ugandans from using the MiGs. Instead, they used slower and noisier attack helicopters which, according to diplomats, may in part have reduced the element of surprise necessary for a successful strike.[77] Meanwhile, the Ugandan ground troops, hampered by transport problems, arrived in the area only some 72 hours later.[78]

The bombardment destroyed the camps, but Kony and other senior commanders escaped. According to children who were in the camp on the day of the bombardment and later escaped to safety, Kony left the camp to go on a hunting expedition less than 20 minutes before the attack.[79] LRA combatants dispersed into several groups and were able to either flee or hide before the UPDF arrived.

Despite its mandate to protect civilians, MONUC was not included in the planning for this operation and senior MONUC officials were informed only hours before the campaign began.[80] According to Ugandan military officials, the plan was for the Congolese army and SPLA (along the Sudanese-DRC border) to protect civilians while the Ugandans went after Kony and the other indicted commanders.[81] Yet 10 days after the launch of "Operation Lightning Thunder," there were no Ugandan, Congolese, or UN peacekeeping forces in the main towns surrounding the LRA's former base.

Killings December 2008 and January 2009

On December 24 and 25, 2008-10 days after the launch of Operation Lightning Thunder-the LRA conducted a coordinated series of attacks against at least three locations that involved the widespread massacre of civilians. The LRA appears to have waited for the holiday period when they could expect to inflict the maximum number of deaths quickly by targeting gathered villages. They followed up the first attacks with others, which continue at the time of this writing.

The LRA killed at least 815 Congolese civilians and at least 50 Sudanese civilians between December 24, 2008 and January 17, 2009.  The victims included at least 300 in the Doruma area to the west of Garamba National Park and near the border between DRC, the Central African Republic, and southern Sudan; 153 civilians in the Faradje area southeast of the park; 256 civilians near Tora, south of the park, and another 44 in the Duru area just west of the park, near the border between DRC and southern Sudan. In addition LRA forces killed 62 people in attacks west of Dungu including Napopo on January 2, in Bangadi on January 5, and in Diagbe on January 13, 2009.[82] During most of these attacks there were only a few abductions, unlike the pattern over previous months, possibly because the LRA saw abducted persons as likely to hamper rapid movement. However, 160 children were abducted at Faradje.

Massacres in the Doruma area

On December 25, 26, and 27, 2008, the LRA attacked at least 13 villages around Doruma, a small town in northern Congo near the border with Sudan and the Central African Republic. The timing and tactics indicate that their purpose was to kill the largest number of civilians possible. They struck when people were gathered together for Christmas festivities and, on at least one occasion, lured more victims to the scene by pretending a party was taking place. Unlike attackers elsewhere, the assailants showed little interest in looting or in abducting civilians: they came to kill. They used the same tactics in each village: they surrounded the victims, tied them up with cords or rubber strips from bicycle tires, stripped them of their clothes, and then killed them with blows to the head from large sticks, clubs, axes, or machetes. They raped dozens of women and girls before crushing their skulls. They did not spare children and babies. Of the few who survived, most suffered serious head injuries and had apparently escaped because the assailants thought they were dead.

The Christmas attack was not the first time that the LRA had come to the Doruma area. LRA combatants had passed by the town at least three times between 2006 and 2008 as they traveled the road between the park and the CAR border. On one occasion, LRA combatants boldly marched through the center of town, took down the Congolese flag from its flag pole, and marched on again.[83] They had caused little trouble and had told the local administrator, Giles Nzerien Mandata, that they had no problem with the Congolese people. But in December 2008 it was different. As the local administrator told Human Rights Watch researchers, this time it was "total horror."[84] 

Batande killings

One of the first attacks in the Doruma area was also one of the worst. On Christmas day, the LRA slaughtered at least 82 people of a population of about 100 in the small hamlet of Batande, about five miles northeast of Doruma town and only a mile or so from the Sudanese border. The residents of the hamlet all knew each other well and they celebrated Christmas by eating together after the Christmas church services. The village women had prepared special food and the men had erected a makeshift thatched marquee (paillote) just outside the Protestant church. By 3 p.m. most of Batande's residents as well as a few guests were gathered together enjoying their meal, when a group of armed LRA combatants appeared out of the forests and surrounded them.

A 72-year-old man who came late to the Christmas lunch was a short distance away on the footpath leading to the church when the LRA attacked. He hid in the bushes and watched the horror unfold. He told Human Rights Watch researchers:

The LRA surrounded all the people and began to tie them up with cords, rubber strips from bicycle tires and cloth from the women's skirts which they tore into strips. I saw them tie up my wife, my children and my grandchildren. I was powerless to help them. After tying them up, they took 26 of the men, including the pastor and his eldest son and some of the older boys, and led them away into the forest in front of the church.

I followed them and hid nearby so I could see what was happening. They tore off their clothes and put them face down on the ground. Then they started to hit them one by one on the head with large sticks. They crushed their skulls till their brains came out. Three LRA were doing all the work. They were quick at killing. It did not take them very long and they said nothing while they were doing it. They killed all 26. I was horrified. I knew all these people. They were my family, my friends, my neighbors.

When they finished I slipped away and went to my home, where I sat trembling all over. That night I heard the LRA celebrating. They ate the food the women had prepared and drank the beer. Then they slept there among the bodies of those they had killed.

The next morning they left and I went to try to find my wife. There were bodies everywhere. It was then I discovered they had killed the women and children as well. I started to dig graves to bury the dead. Initially I was alone but then some other people came to help me. I could not find my wife. It was only after a few days that I found her just beyond the stream. Her skull had been crushed like the others. Her body was already decomposing so I had to bury her where she was killed in a mass grave with other women and children.[85]

Among the 82 killed in Batande were some 50 women and children, the youngest an eight-month-old baby boy. According to the people who buried the victims, the bodies of many of the women and girls were found in separate small groups in the forest area some 300 yards northeast of the church. From the state of the bodies and the positions in which they were found, it appears that many of them had been raped.[86] At least three residents of Batande were taken by the LRA and killed the following day in other locations (see below). These people may have been taken to serve as guides to neighboring villages.

On December 26, the few remaining residents of Batande, including the elderly man mentioned above, began the gruesome task of counting and burying the dead, aided by a small group of people from Doruma who had heard about the killings. During the afternoon of December 27, the first group of Ugandan soldiers arrived, two days too late to help the people of Batande. Two hours later a second group of Ugandan soldiers passed through, helped the local residents to identify more areas where bodies could be found, and then followed the direction taken by the LRA.[87]

On January 12, Human Rights Watch researchers visited Batande accompanied by an eyewitness to the killings and those who had assisted in burying the bodies. The evidence found at the massacre scene was consistent with statements by witnesses. Researchers found 16 gravesites with freshly turned earth, including six graves at the Protestant chapel, six in a 250 yard radius from the church, and two at the entrance into Batande. They were told about two further gravesites a short distance away on the north side of the stream. According to those who participated in the burials, these graves contain 82 bodies. Human Rights Watch researchers also found pools of dried blood, cords, and rubber strips used to tie up the prisoners, and at least five large blood-stained sticks, each about four-inches in diameter in the locations where witnesses indicated the killings had taken place and where the bodies were later found.[88] The few remaining residents of Batande told Human Rights Watch researchers that there were bodies still in the forest that had not been buried due to their state of decomposition and the lack of security to carry out the burials. The smell of corpses still hung over Batande nearly three weeks after the massacre.

Killings at Nagengwa, Mabando, and other villages

On the morning of December 26, LRA forces attacked Nagengwa, some two miles from Batande, where they killed 30 people. At least 19 victims from the village were later found naked by the nearby stream with their hands tied and who had had their skulls crushed with axes or large wooden clubs.[89] Many of the dead were children; two were babies who had been killed by having their heads twisted, breaking their necks. Two three-year-old girls in Manvugo who survived attempts to kill them by the same method were in Doruma hospital with serious neck injuries at the time of this writing.[90]

A 53-year-old mother of four survived the attack in Nagengwa when she fell under the bodies of other family members and the assailants apparently presumed she was dead. She said:

I was at home with my brother and five of my cousins when the LRA came to our house. They immediately brought us all together and tied up the other six. They didn't tie me, I guess because I'm too old. One of the soldiers then went into the house and started to take all the clothes and other goods they could find. Then they came out and started the killing. The first person killed was my brother. They chopped his skull with an axe. Then they pulled me and one of my cousins to the side and hit my cousin with the axe. He fell down, and I fell under him. The blood from his head ran onto me, and the LRA thought I had already been killed. It all happened very quickly, and soon the other six were all dead and the LRA left with their stolen goods. I was terrified and stayed in the same place [under the bodies] until 4 a.m. when I got enough strength to run into the bushes and hide.[91]

The afternoon of the same day, LRA forces killed a further 50 people in Mabando village, northeast of Nagengwa. The assailants lured their victims to a central place by playing the radio and forcing some victims to sing songs and to call for others to come join the party.[92]  

Later on December 26, and in the days that followed, LRA combatants attacked at least nine other villages including Douane (also known as Manvugo), Natalubu, Bama, Naulu, Katinga, Bakulagba,  Masombo, Gadi, and Mogoroko, all within a 15 mile radius of Doruma. In each village they killed civilians by brutal blows to the head.

Following the Christmas attacks, some 10,000 area residents sought refuge in town. Lack of food, however, soon forced some people to return to their fields at least for short periods of time, putting them at risk of further attacks by the LRA, who were still in the forest area some 15 miles from Doruma at the time of writing.

Massacres and Abductions in Faradje

On December 25, the same day that killings were taking place in Batande, another group of LRA combatants attacked the town of Faradje, about 180 miles (300 kilometers) east of Doruma. According to Ugandan army officials, this group was commanded by Lt. Col. Charles Arop.[93] With a population of about 37,000, Faradje is one of the larger towns in the region with a substantial number of shops, so it presented richer prospects for looting than did the farming villages.

In the afternoon, as residents gathered for a Christmas concert, a group of about 200 LRA combatants descended on the town and killed at least 143 people, mostly men, and abducted 160 children and dozens of adults.[94] The attackers looted extensively before burning 940 houses, three primary schools, and nine churches.[95]

In mid-January, Human Rights Watch researchers retraced the LRA's path of destruction through the town, interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses, and viewed the locations where victims were killed and later buried. Much of the town had been burned and many neighborhoods were still largely deserted at the time of the visit.

In Faradje, the LRA combatants targeted adult men, including the local doctor, two school inspectors, two pastors, teachers, and state officials. They began their military operation in Aligi, a suburb of Faradje about a mile and half from the town center. The LRA combatants came via a footpath from Garamba National Park and abducted a young man from the first house they came to. They forced him to be their guide. The combatants who entered Aligi were accompanied by 10 to 15 prisoners, including eight girls and boys who were tied to each other at the waist. Some also had their wrists tied together.[96] Several of the girls wore mini-skirts and military shirts.

On the way into Faradje, the LRA combatants killed all whom they encountered, pretending at first approach to be friendly and then killing the victims with a blow to the head with an axe, machete, or a large wooden stick.[97] They killed at least 25 residents of Aligi as they silently entered Faradje.

Roger, a 48-year-old man who had just enjoyed a Christmas meal with his family, was napping in the shade outside his home in Aligi on the afternoon of December 25. Awakened by a noise, he saw two men in military uniform approaching him. "One of them put out his hand to say hello and asked me how I was," he told Human Rights Watch researchers. "I didn't recognize them, but before I could even respond the other one swung at my head with a large piece of wood. He hit me twice very hard. I fell down and was bleeding from my head. I heard my wife screaming before I passed out."[98] The assailants left Roger for dead. His wife managed to drag him unconscious into a hiding place in the forest where she tried to stop the bleeding by wrapping his injured head with her skirt. "I came to when I was lying in our hiding place and saw the LRA kill our neighbor and another man in the road. I kept thinking who are these people? What have we done to them?" The next day, Roger, supported by his wife, stumbled slowly towards the hospital for treatment. At the time of the interview with Human Rights Watch researchers, he had two large gashes on his head.

At around 5 p.m., the LRA combatants entered the center of Faradje, where many residents, especially children, had gathered for the Christmas day concert. Initially the combatants pretended to be Congolese army soldiers. Some of them spoke Lingala, the commonly spoken language in Faradje, and called out to the people, telling them to come near. These tactics reassured some people and kept them from fleeing. Then the combatants fired shots in the air and began to round up the girls and boys. They killed the men they managed to capture with blows to the head.

Marie, a 30-year-old mother of seven, told Human Rights Watch researchers that her husband and other family members were killed on Christmas day. She said:

I was at home and my children were at the Christmas concert when the LRA attacked. All of a sudden, around 5 p.m., I saw people running through the streets, away from the town center. My children ran home, and then four men in military uniforms appeared behind my house. One of them said in bad Lingala, "Don't run. Stay with us. We are here for you." At first I thought they were Congolese army soldiers, but then one of them grabbed my 13-year-old daughter, dragged her onto the street, and pointed his gun at her. I saw his long dreadlocks and then realized it was the LRA who had come to attack us. My daughter managed to get away, and the other three soldiers encircled the nine of us who remained-four men, two women, and three children.

They came into the kitchen, grabbed the wooden sticks we use to grind maize, and started beating the men. They chopped off my husband's middle finger with a machete before hitting him on the head. He managed to survive but later died at the hospital. The attackers gouged out the left eye of one of the other men and then killed him with a blow to the head. They chopped the ear off the third man with an axe, shot him in the knee, and then killed him with a blow to the head. The fourth man managed to escape after dodging two blows to the head. I ran into the bush with the other women and children. We heard gunshots all night and watched as the town went up in flames.[99]

The LRA combatants tied up the abducted children and adults and forced them to sit in a circle and wait while the LRA captured more people and pillaged the town. One 13-year-old boy was abducted by an LRA combatant when he left his aunt's house to fetch his sister for Christmas dinner. The combatant, who had dreadlocks, was wearing a military uniform and had spoken to the child in poor Lingala, tied him up, and took him to a place where 44 other captured children had already been tied up together. The newly abducted boy was tied to the others and left under the guard of a few combatants while others went to find more children.[100]

When night fell, the attackers set fire to a number of buildings, possibly to allow them to see what they were doing and to make sure that the persons tied up did not escape. Around midnight, a first group of combatants left the town in the direction from which they had come, burning houses along the way, especially in the suburb of Aligi. They took with them a number of persons who were forced to carry pillaged goods. A second group left in the direction of Watsa, pillaging the hospital and burning houses on the way.[101]

Lillian, a 28-year-old mother of five, was captured along with her 11-year-old daughter and her husband. "They killed my husband in front of me by crushing his skull with a club," she told Human Rights Watch researchers. "The combatants then forced open the doors of all the shops in the market and gave us things to transport. There were about 50 of us who had been abducted. We walked for about five miles [seven kilometers] on the main road, with more than 50 combatants, including men, women, and child soldiers. I managed to get away and came back to the burning town with dead bodies strewn across the marketplace. But my daughter is still with the LRA."[102]

 

A third, smaller group of combatants continued to pillage until early the following morning before they left Faradje, taking the road north towards Aba. About two and a half miles (four kilometers) out of town they attacked the suburb of Takiani, where they killed civilians, abducted more children, and once again looted.

The LRA forced the children as well as some 20 abducted adults to carry their pillaged goods back towards Garamba National Park, the direction from which they had come. One boy told Human Rights Watch researchers:

We had to walk in the bush all night long. They hit me really badly because they said I was walking too slowly. They also hit us if we tried to talk to each other. I was at the end of the line and managed to escape in the morning around 8 a.m., and I ran all the way back to my house.[103]

 

Soon after abducting the children, the assailants killed at least 16 of them, the majority under 10 years of age, possibly because they found them too young to be useful as porters, combatants, or sex slaves.[104]

Protection Arrives Too Late

On the morning of December 26, MONUC-which, as described, had not been included in the planning of Operation Lightning Thunder-assisted Congolese army soldiers to deploy in and around Faradje. As the MONUC helicopters hovered overhead, LRA combatants in Takiani climbed into trees and hid in houses to avoid being seen by soldiers in the helicopters. By the time Congolese soldiers had landed and arrived on foot at Takiani, the last LRA combatants had gone, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.[105]

While the presence of Congolese soldiers in Faradje has reassured residents of the area, it has not deterred the LRA from attacking in the park and in towns and villages near to Faradje, including Nagero and Aba.[106]  

LRA combatants have usually avoided confrontation with military forces, but they attacked the park station in Nagero on the southeastern edge of the park on January 2, some 25 kilometers from Faradje, despite the presence of a small number of Congolese army soldiers and armed park rangers. Their apparent objective was to eliminate, or at least limit, the capacity of park personnel to monitor their activities in the park: they destroyed communications equipment and burned two small planes, several vehicles, and the park station office. In a departure from other attacks during this period and probably as a result of the presence of an armed opponent, the LRA used firearms during this attack. They killed 10 people, including three women, two park guards, the radio operator, a pastor, and an electrician, injured six others, and abducted at least two children. Several LRA combatants were killed by the armed guards of the station.[107] 

In subsequent attacks on villages south and west of Faradje, LRA forces killed at least 256 people between January 8 and 16, including in the towns of Sambia, Akua, Tomate, and Tora. Given the remoteness of the region, the information from these attacks is still incomplete and the death toll may be higher.

In the town of Sambia, women and children fled to the bush or to other towns after a first LRA attack on January 8, but the men stayed to defend their property, believing they would be protected from future attack by Congolese troops. Jean-Pierre was one of the men who stayed. He told Human Rights Watch researchers:

Just before midnight on January 10, I heard gunshots and people shouting in the center of the town. I ran outside and found two LRA combatants just outside my home. They grabbed me but I scrambled and managed to get away. I heard lots of gunshots and spent the night in the bush. The next day, I came back and the town was deserted, except for a handful of people burying bodies. I saw at least 30 bodies and six gravesites. Many others were killed in the forests surrounding the town, and their bodies have not yet been discovered.[108]

Many Sambia residents had fled west to the town of Tora which was itself attacked by the LRA on January 16, forcing the displaced persons to flee again. The UN said they received reports that as many as 100 people may have been killed in this attack.[109]

Massacres in the Duru Area

On December 24 and 25, the LRA launched its third attack in the Duru and Bitima area in Yakulu area, just west of Garamba National Park. There they killed at least 40 civilians. Because many of the local residents later fled to southern Sudan, it has been difficult for Congolese local authorities and civil society members to collect information on the attacks.

Three groups of LRA combatants passed through Duru, Bitima, and adjacent areas on December 24 and 25, killing anyone they met along the way. At the village of Nambia, the assailants attacked on Christmas Eve, avoiding the main road and entering the village from the forest. They went from home to home, killing victims in the same way as in other locations, by crushing their skulls with axes, machetes, and wooden sticks. In one case, an attacker used a machete to stab a woman in the back who was trying to flee, killing her as well as the baby she was carrying on her back.[110] 

Local residents hastily wrote a note to a small contingent of Congolese army soldiers based at Kiliwa, some 60 kilometers south, begging them to come and help. Running as fast as possible with the note, the messenger needed two days to arrive at the base. When he got there on December 27, the soldiers said that they would have to wait for orders from their commander before sending help to Nambia.[111] In the meantime, most residents of the area had fled across the border into southern Sudan.

According to reports from MONUC officials and journalists, the LRA continued to attack in the Duru area and killed four civilians there on January 13.[112]

Attacks in southern Sudan

The LRA forces that attacked in and around Duru and Bitima on December 24 and 25 also reportedly moved into southern Sudan, where they carried out more attacks in Gangura, near Yambio, before being chased back into DRC by the SPLA.[113] Other LRA groups remain in southern Sudan or hover along the border between DRC and southern Sudan.

According to early reports from the region, the LRA killed more than 50 civilians and abducted some 60 children and adults in Yambio, Maridi, and Mundri counties between mid-December and early January. Although the combatants occasionally fired guns at the start of an attack, they usually killed with machetes or clubs. As the time of writing, LRA attacks continue in southern Sudan.[114]

Rescue and Surrender

On January 28, 2009, Ugandan military officials told Human Rights Watch they had rescued 58 civilians and that a further 20 combatants had been captured or surrendered from the LRA since the start of Operation Lightning Thunder, including Ugandans, Congolese, and Sudanese.[115] On February 10, President Yoweri Museveni said to journalists that 280 abductees had been rescued, of which 130 had reported to the UPDF and 165 to Congolese forces, and that 40 LRA fighters had been confirmed dead, though these numbers could not be independently verified.

In late January, the LRA's second-in-command, Okot Odhiambo, wanted on an ICC arrest warrant, contacted the International Organization for Migration (IOM) expressing a desire to surrender with an unknown number of his combatants and possibly with Dominic Ongwen, another senior LRA commander wanted by the ICC.[116] At the time of writing he had not yet done so.