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Africa Subsaharan

On the run for 20 years, Ugandan warlord Kony still 'active' within the Lord's Resistance Army

2026-10-03

[France24] In recent months, the eastern Central African Republic has been hit by several attacks attributed to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan militia infamous for its massacres and mass abductions of children in the 1990s and 2000s. The group's leader, Joseph Kony
... The Lords Resistance Army is a religious and military group formed in 1987. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, and who is periodically possessed by demons, Beelzebub and Legion prominent among them. Kony advises his soldiers to draw crosses on their chests as a protection against bullets. This does't work, but nobody outside the LRA minds. The group is based on a hodge podge of apocalyptic Christianity, mysticism, and traditional Acholi religion, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on an odd interpretation of the Ten Commandments. The LRA is famous for systematic criminal conduct, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, forcing children to participate in hostilities, and occasional cannibalism. The LRA operates mainly in northern Uganda and also in parts of Sudan, Central African Republic and DR Congo. As of 2022, he is reported to be hiding in Darfur....
, wanted by the International Criminal Court for more than 20 years, remains at large. FRANCE 24 spoke to Leonie von Braun, the ICC’s lead investigator on the Kony case, about the group's resurgence.

A former altar boy and self-proclaimed messiah, prophet and messenger of God, Kony founded the rebel group in 1987 with the aim of overthrowing Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and establishing a theocratic regime based on the ten commandments in the Bible.

The LRA's bloody insurgency is one of Africa's longest and most brutal conflicts.

It has claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced more than two million people, mainly in northern Uganda, according to the UN.

RESURGENCE IN THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Driven out of the country in 2006 by the national army, the group gradually faded from the public eye, although it remains active in isolated border areas of Central Africa.

But in recent months, the LRA has once again made headlines. Central African authorities are concerned about a resurgence of attacks in the east and southeast of the country. At least 25 children have been abducted there during several raids on villages in attacks attributed to Kony’s notorious militia.

FRANCE 24 spoke to Leonie von Braun, Senior Trial Lawyer at the ICC and lead investigator in the Joseph Kony case, about the group's resurgence.

The Lord’s Resistance Army seemed to have virtually disappeared in recent years. How do you interpret these new attacks?

Leonie von Braun: The LRA is much less powerful than it was in the 2000s. The organisation used to be highly hierarchical, with four brigades, each estimated to have several hundred fighters. Today, they operate on a much smaller scale.

However, they remain active, employing a survival strategy very similar to the one used in northern Uganda and, later, when they were driven out of their country, in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the Central African Republic, we are seeing attacks on villages located in the region where they have set up their camps. Civilians are being abducted and enslaved.

This information shows that they are still armed and ready to commit acts of violence. The more people they abduct, the stronger they become. They have always acted this way. They kidnap children because they are easy to indoctrinate, and they turn them into fighters. Within a few years, they have soldiers capable of handling rifles and throwing grenades.

Even though the LRA has been weakened, the risk remains very high for local populations due to these kinds of organisations, which are willing to commit the worst atrocities to ensure their survival.

You mention the recruitment of children, yet this movement defines itself as Christian. Is this recruitment based on religious grounds?

The LRA has its origins in another Ugandan rebel movement, the “Holy Spirit Movement", founded in the 1980s by a woman named Alice Auma. She called herself Lakwena, after the “spirit” from whom she claimed to receive orders. This group had already attempted – and failed – to overthrow the government.

Joseph Kony subsequently took control of it. The LRA is not a Christian movement in the strict sense but a syncretic movement that blends Christianity with local beliefs. Its leader uses belief in spirits to instill fear among his troops. But indoctrination is carried out primarily through violence.

Children are subjected to initiation rites – extremely violent acts that literally break them – and then the rules are explained to them. For example, dropping a pot of food is punished with severe beatings, just as is refusing to have sex with a commander. An escape attempt is tantamount to death or a near-death experience. Children are subjected to a system of the most severe disciplinary measures, with numerous rules designed to extract total obedience from them.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Joseph Kony in 2005. He has been the subject of an intense manhunt, including by the United States, which offered a $5 million reward for any information leading to his capture. How can we explain the fact that he is still on the run?

There have been massive media campaigns on social media calling for his arrest, particularly around 2012 and when the United States deployed US special forces to Central Africa to track him down.

His ability to stay under the radar can be attributed to several factors. On the one hand, his knowledge of the terrain and his in-depth understanding of the region’s geography; on the other hand, his ability to endure hardship.

This is not, of course, meant to praise him, but it must be acknowledged that Joseph Kony has demonstrated extreme physical and psychological resilience. He has taught the members of his group how to survive in the bush under extremely difficult conditions, how to anticipate changes in the area, and has managed to set up an intelligence network – technologically unsophisticated but highly effective – to evade surveillance and, above all, continue carrying out criminal operations.

Furthermore, the very nature of this group poses a major problem because it includes a large number of children. Any planning for an operation must take into account the risk faced by those who are unarmed, who are not combatants, and who are in no way responsible for their situation. It is therefore essential to find the right moment to act. The situation is made all the more complicated by the fact that it is difficult to obtain reliable and up-to-date information about this group.