V. Attacks on Civilians between September and November 2008

I saw dead bodies on the ground; some had their hands tied, some were burned and floating in the river. The bodies were in different places; I could not count them.

-A local leader from Duru

In September 2008, shortly after the Congolese and MONUC began deploying troops into Haut-Uele for Operation Rudia, the LRA leadership turned on civilians, in retaliation for the assistance given to LRA defectors by villagers, priests, and local authorities.[40] The tactic of using extreme violence against civilians who help defectors and those who might provide information about LRA activities to hostile forces has been widely used by the LRA in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.

On September 17, 2008, the LRA simultaneously attacked the villages of Duru, Mandoro, Nambili, and Kiliwa to the north of Dungu (in the area closest to Kony's headquarters at Kiswahili camp), killing civilians and abducting children and adults. Over the following days they attacked other villages including Kpaika, Nambia, Bitima, and Bayote. These settlements lie along a road that runs from Dungu north to the border with South Sudan, a route often taken by persons escaping from the LRA who wished to make it to the MONUC base at Dungu.

One captured combatant interviewed by Human Rights Watch said, "Kony ordered us to attack Duru and the towns to the south as the Congolese people had turned against us, were helping the defectors, and were now our enemies. We were also ordered to take children as part of the operation to replace those who had left. We targeted the younger ones, those under 15, as they are much easier to teach and don't yet have fixed ideas."[41] Priests attacked in Duru as part of this operation, one of whom was able to speak Acholi and to understand what the attackers said, also confirmed that the attacks were partly in revenge for assistance given to defectors.[42]

Many civilians who fled the attacks described their assailants as having "rasta" or "crazy" hair, being unkempt and dirty and wearing parts of military uniforms.[43] They said the attackers spoke languages they did not understand and communicated with them through hand signals, broken Swahili, or sometimes a few words of Lingala.[44] The LRA also looted many homes as well as the local Catholic parish in Duru and the health center. After abducting schoolchildren, the LRA looted and burned their schools.

The September attacks were followed by others on such places as Bangadi on October 19, killing nine civilians and abducting at least 41 children,[45] and the district capital of Dungu on November 1. In Dungu, two people were killed, at least 27 children were abducted, and dozens of houses were burned, despite the presence of UN peacekeepers and a Congolese army base just outside the town.

Overall, in the period from September to November, the LRA killed at least 167 civilians and abducted some 316 children,[46] who joined hundreds of others previously abducted by the LRA in northern Uganda, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic and kept in camps in and around Garamba National Park.[47] The LRA also abducted dozens of adults to transport their pillaged goods or to serve as guides. Some were later freed; others were killed. By mid-October an estimated 17,000 people had been displaced, and approximately 5,000 had sought safety across the border in southern Sudan.[48]

During the same period, LRA rebels also attacked locations inside southern Sudan. On the early morning of September 18, for example, a group of approximately 50 LRA combatants attacked the border town of Sakure targeting SPLA soldiers, apparently seeking weapons and supplies including medicine from a clinic. According to witnesses, the LRA soldiers exchanged fire with the  SPLA, then attacked the town, burning a 6-year-old boy to death, and abducting 12 children.[49]

Killings and Abductions

Refugees from Duru who had fled to southern Sudan told Human Rights Watch how some 200 LRA combatants surrounded the village and then killed scores of people with machetes. "I saw dead bodies on the ground; some had their hands tied, some were burned and floating in the river. The bodies were in different places; I could not count them," recalled one local official from Duru who was attacked by LRA combatants while on his way to the Duru market. At the time of the interview he bore a fresh scar on his head.[50]

One school official in Duru was in his office when the LRA attacked his school. He told Human Rights Watch researchers how he saw LRA combatants lock the children into the classrooms before coming to his office and threatening to kill him. "One of the LRA combatants held an axe over my head and was about to strike me with it. I begged for mercy. I don't know what made him change his mind, but he dropped the axe and tied me up instead."[51] The school official managed to free himself and ran into the nearby forest. The next day he found many bodies. "I saw the bodies of others they had killed near Duru and at Kpaika. They all had their skulls crushed," he said.[52]   

The director of a school in Kiliwa told Human Rights Watch researchers what happened there:

Around 2 p.m. on September 17, just after students were let out of school, a child came to tell me that the LRA had arrived and was abducting children. I looked out my window towards the center of town, and there was total panic. The LRA had started burning the market, the church, people's houses, even bicycles. I left my house and fled into the bushes, just behind the school. I watched as about 50 LRA combatants raided the town. They burned my home and the school; all of our materials were lost. During their four days in Kiliwa, the LRA abducted 41 of my students and killed 20 men. One of our local chiefs was killed by machete on September 17 and then the combatants came back to burn his body the next day. I later saw the remains of his body before fleeing to Dungu.[53]

Schools appear to have been particularly targeted as places where the LRA could easily find large numbers of children. They focused on primary schools, and first and second year classes at secondary schools where they were more likely to find children aged between 10 and 15-years-old.[54] In addition to the Institute Duru and the Ecole Primaire Kiliwa, other schools attacked included the Ecole Primaire Mandoro, the Ecole Primaire Kpaika and the Ecole Primaire Malingbundu.

According to school officials, the LRA took 65 students from Institute Duru, one of the most important schools in the region, on September 17. A teacher who witnessed the attack told Human Rights Watch researchers that the combatants padlocked the doors of the other classrooms, locking the students inside, before beginning their work in the classrooms of the younger students aged 10 to 12-years-old. He said:

I was in the classroom with the children when three LRA combatants entered and two others blocked the door. The children were screaming and trying to hide under the benches and the desks. It was chaos. The LRA started to hit the children. They seriously injured some of them. They made gestures with their hands telling the children to be quiet. I tried to calm things down. I didn't want the children to be hurt. I told them to stay calm, not to resist because they might be killed. Then the LRA began to tie them up into a long line, one behind the other. They tied up all the students except a young girl of 10-years-old and an older boy of 17. In total they took 33 of my students that day.[55] 

In another classroom at the same school, LRA combatants locked the door from the inside to keep students from fleeing, tied them up, and then handed them one by one through the window to other waiting combatants.[56]

A history teacher who was abducted with 24 students told Human Rights Watch researchers that the six LRA combatants who took them away were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, wore parts of military uniforms, were dirty and had long hair. He said, "I couldn't understand the language they spoke. They were organized and had planned this attack well. They had long ropes to tie everyone up into a single line, and didn't beat anyone as everyone had to carry something. They made us carry very heavy loads. They took us to the bush and we walked for about 10 miles before stopping. During the walk they killed one very old man because he refused to carry the load."[57]

One 17-year-old boy, who escaped from the LRA two months after being abducted, told Human Rights Watch researchers that he had been taken from his home in the village of Kpaika in the middle of the night on September 21. He said:

All of a sudden, 20 LRA combatants forced their way into my house and grabbed my three sisters and me. They tied us up and took us to the center of Kpaika, where we were eventually joined by 37 other girls and boys. They tied us up in a line, with rope connecting us at the waist. We watched as they burned the church, the school, and the health center, and then they even killed people by beating them over the head with clubs, machetes, and axes. In the morning, they gave us their stolen goods to carry and we began the long walk to Camp Kiswahili, where Kony was waiting. They beat us regularly as we walked, and those who didn't walk fast enough were killed. I saw them kill three boys from Kpaika with an axe because they were walking too slowly. They also killed at least 15 adults along the way who were also abducted in Kpaika.[58]

A young woman who was visiting her grandparents in Duru and who was hiding in the bushes during the attack saw the LRA assailants use the same methods to abduct her relatives. She said, "We saw them go into our grandfather's house. They used ropes to tie people in a line. They tied my grandparents and cousins. There were about nine combatants. They had long hair, very messy. Some had guns, machetes. They were taking food from the houses."[59]

Parents were devastated at the capture of their children. According to a 35-year-old woman from Bayote, a group of nine combatants carrying guns surrounded her compound, looted all the valuables and food, and abducted three of her daughters:

I was holding my baby and one daughter in my arms, the other two daughters were nearby… Two of them started to beat me with sticks. They took my daughter from my arms and beat me and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, my husband and his two other wives and my baby were still there but my three girls were not… I could not walk from the beating for two days. I was very psychologically affected. Since they already took our children I thought, just let them kill us.[60]

Another mother whose daughter was abducted by the LRA said, "I cry everyday for her. You can't imagine what it's like to have your daughter taken from you. It makes me ill when I think about what they could be doing to her in the bush. I don't know if I'll ever see her again, or even if she's still alive."[61]

Some parents organized search parties to try to find their children, but in vain.

According to some abducted children who managed to escape and were interviewed by Human Rights Watch researchers, at least 23 of the children taken in September 2008 or earlier from CAR and southern Sudan were later killed, either because they were judged too young, too weak, or too uncooperative to be easily integrated into the LRA group.[62] Two captured LRA combatants told a Human Rights Watch researcher that they had killed a number of the children originally abducted from the Duru area, but that they could not remember how many.[63] 

In some cases, LRA commanders forced abducted children to kill others. A 14-year-old boy abducted by the LRA in Duru, who managed to escape three months later said: 

When I first got to the LRA camp they said that if you tried to escape they would kill you. Then a few weeks later three people tried to escape. One of them was a 12-year-old boy from Kiliwa and the other two were about 16-years-old and were from CAR. I had to participate in doing this. We killed one on one day and then the other two the next day. They put us in a circle around the boys, and then we each had to take turns hitting them on the head with a club. We passed the club between us hitting them one at a time until they were dead. You could not refuse or you would be killed as well.[64]

Inadequate Protection

Operation Rudia called for the deployment of three Congolese army battalions (over 2,000 troops) and about 200 UN peacekeepers in Haut-Uele District by September 13, 2008.[65] Although the operational plan states that Operation Rudia was to contain the LRA and help prevent human rights abuses by the LRA, the scale of the planned deployment by MONUC was well short of what would be required to carry out such a task. Because of logistical problems and competing priorities, only some 400 Congolese soldiers and 154 Moroccan peacekeepers had arrived when the LRA turned against Congolese civilians on September 17, 2008,[66] and there were no MONUC or Congolese army troops outside the district capital, Dungu.[67] MONUC and Congolese army forces stationed only four and a half miles (seven kilometers) from Dungu town center did not deter the LRA attack on November 1.[68] According to MONUC officials, Dungu was never intended to be a base from which to lead military operations against the LRA. Rather it was a logistical support base for the joint MONUC-Congolese army containment operation.[69]

As the attacks in September demonstrated that the Congolese army and MONUC were unable to protect civilians from the LRA, the Congolese army sent reinforcements to the northeast. By mid-October, 2,200 Congolese soldiers had arrived in Dungu, including many from the elite Republican Guard. With air support from MONUC, some of those troops were deployed to Duru on October 16, but within two weeks, they were forced to withdraw because MONUC was unable to provide adequate rations and other logistical support.[70] The soldiers were deployed to Kiliwa instead, a post nearer Dungu and easier to supply.

In early November, possibly in anticipation of an eventual military operation against the LRA, the Congolese army commander in Dungu, Colonel Mundos, requested MONUC support to move troops to Doruma and Faradje, key population centers surrounding the LRA's main bases. For reasons that are not clear, MONUC declined the request.[71] According to MONUC officials, one explanation given was the lack of resources and helicopters at a time when MONUC was concentrating on dealing with the crisis in the Kivus where the rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) force was advancing rapidly. Another explanation given was that MONUC officers feared that the Congolese army, exposed in relatively distant locations, would be unable to defend itself from a possible LRA attack.[72] Whatever the explanation, the decision meant that no troops would be present to protect civilians in those towns when the LRA launched its attacks a month later.

Several MONUC officials repeatedly requested additional support for their Dungu base after the September attacks, but none of the requests for additional troops, helicopters, and other resources was granted.[73] As with the decisions regarding additional support to the Congolese troops, the need to keep scarce resources for the Kivus may have determined the refusal.