Aid group: Ugandan rebels killing in DRC

KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The Lords Resistance Army has killed more than 400 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo since Christmas, an international aid group said Tuesday.

Bruno Mitewo, head of the Catholic group Caritas in the DRC, said that a total of 440 civilians had been killed in three towns, the BBC reported. He said that some of the victims were forced into fires where they burned to death and others hacked with machetes.

The Lord's Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony who claims to be speaking for God, has been fighting the government of Uganda since 1987. Kony, declared a war criminal by the international criminal court, has been using northwestern Congo as a base in recent years.

Mitewo said that the villages in the area where the LRA is operating have been burned and their inhabitants have fled, about 20,000 to the city of Dungu and others to the mountains. An eyewitness told the BBC that LRA fighters cut the lips from three people as punishment for speaking ill of the group.

A spokesman for the LRA denied that it has killed any civilians recently. He blamed the killings on defectors who have joined the Ugandan army.