Thousands of civilians have been displaced as the Lords Resistance Army and two Sudanese rebel groups battle for a southern Sudanese village of Moti.
The LRA, the Sudanese Equatorial Defense Forces (EDF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) have since Friday battled over Moti, a remote village 31 miles southeast of Juba in southern Sudan.
Rev. Paul Yugusuk, a cleric who heads a deaconery in the area, told a Sudanese publication, The Sudan Tribune on Monday that the raids have forced more than 9,000 people from villages around the southern Sudanese town of Torit. He said people are living in "dire conditions" in three camps situated west of Torit.
"The refugees are protected from further LRA attacks by Sudan's main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), but they have no access to food or medicine," he added.
41 villagers were killed in the LRA attack on Moti on Friday as the LRA took control of the village up to Sunday. The UK-based secretary general of EDF, Charles Barnaba Kisanga, said in a statement on Monday that his force and SPLA had re-occupied Moti.
"EDF forces of the SPLA moved back into Moti after our gallant forces made a tactical withdrawal from the village in the afternoon of July 23, following heavy fighting with Ugandan LRA rebels who were aided by GoS (Government of Sudan) logistics and helicopter gun ships," Kisanga claimed in a statement yesterday.
The UPDF, which has forces in southern Sudan, has disassociated itself from the fighting. "The UPDF is not part of that fighting and according to the protocol with Khartoum, EDF and SPLA are not obliged to fight alongside our force," said Lt. Paddy Ankunda, the spokesman for the northern region.
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