Alaka & Co Advocates to Sue Uganda Government if it Fails Within 45 Days to Compensate Arua Victims of LRA Insurgency.

Members of the Kony War victims in West Nile pose for a group photo. PHOTOS BY JOSEPH ODAMA

ARUA. Victims of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in Arua district are demanding the government of Uganda through President Yoweri Museveni to compensate them with Shs 99,884,000,000 for what they lost from 1996 up to the early 2000s along the Pakwack-Karuma road.

The victims who are united under Arua District Kony War Victims Association come from different districts of the West Nile region and are mainly businessmen, they have contracted Alaka and company advocates firm to act on their behalf.

In a statutory notice issued to the Attorney general, the government has been given 45 days to pay the victims and if it fails, a suit will be filed against the government.

Mr Alex Matua, the chairman of Arua district Kony war victim’s association disclosed that members of the association presented their letter to President Yoweri Museveni when he came for campaigns in Arua on the 14th of January 2016 and since then they have been waiting in vain.

Chairman of the Arua district Kony War Victims Association, Mr Alex Matua speaking to journalists on Friday in Arua.

“On 14th Feb 2016, the representatives of the intended plaintiff met the president of the Republic of Uganda when he was on his tour of Arua district. The president directed that verification of the list of the victims and their properties be done, their list be compiled and they were to be paid since their money was already available for compensation”, the statutory notice reads in part.

Matua said they have been channeling their voices to the government through leaders from West Nile who have done nothing in the process.

“President said openly that money for Kony war victims is there. I am praying that the government pays our money. I’m sure the NRM government is good but the leaders who are close to the president are the ones blocking those who are supporting the government”, Matua stressed.

Explaining how she escaped the attack from Lowi Bus in 1996, Agnes A’dakuru noted that she is losing interest in demanding compensation as the process has dragged on for long without the government considering their fate.

“From then up-to-now, they have been telling us that they were going to compensate us but since then, there is nothing and I am losing interest though losing capital is not an easy thing” Ms A’dakuru who ventured in pharmaceutical supplies said.

Ms Harriet Opisa from Maracha district whose deceased father was a victim of the LRA insurgence said the attack on her father crippled education for her and her other siblings because their father was unable to do anything after being brutally injured by the rebels before he escaped.

The members also blamed the state minister for general duties Dr Gabriel Aridru whom they claimed the president had tasked to follow up their issues.

The association has 758 registered members though the unregistered members are more in communities and live a miserable life having lost all their merchandise during the attacks in the Murchison fall national game park.