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Uganda + 1 more

Ugandan rebels kill two, abduct 30 in eastern CAR

20 Feb 2010 18:27:40 GMT

BANGUI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Ugandan rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army killed two people and abducted 30 in a raid on a remote city in the Central African Republic, a witness and local media said on Saturday.

The attack on Friday in the eastern city of Rafai was the third in the region in less than two weeks blamed on the LRA.

The leadership of the group, which has waged a two decades-long insurgency in Uganda before rebasing in Congo, is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

"Two people were killed with machetes and clubs and 14 people were severely wounded," Desire Gassi, a local resident, told Reuters by telephone Saturday.

He said the rebels attacked around nightfall and ransacked a church before abducting about 30 people and heading back into the bush.

A radio broadcaster, Clement Loutemboli, said the rebels had used machetes and clubs instead of guns to avoid alerting an army base several kilometers (miles) away, and were using the hostages as porters.

Although many LRA training camps have been broken up and some rebels disarmed by U.N.-backed Congolese soldiers, they continue to attack civilians in Congo, Sudan and CAR.

(Reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana; writing by Richard Valdmanis; editing by Michael Roddy)