OMORO.
Grief has engulfed residents in Ogwari A Village, Orapwoyo Sub-County in Omoro District after a metal object suspected to be an anti-personnel landmine went off and killed an eight-year-old boy and left four others injured .
Mr Sam Lango, the chairperson of Ogwari A Village Veterans ‘Association identified as Yasin Alenga, and his colleagues found the munitions in the compound after a downpour and attempted to dig them from the ground.
The ordnance later went off, ripping his lower parts of the body. He was pronounced dead hours later.
The survivors are Jerry Alobo, 2,Darius Opiyo, 12, Apollo Okello, 8 and Abraham Oloya, 5, -all residents of Ogwari A village . The quartet is e currently receiving medical attention from various health facilities in Gulu City.
Mr Lango, said he suspects that the children were hit by a landmine planted by the LRA.
“This could be a landmine that was planted a long time ago. Even if it stayed in the ground for a long time, it was still active and dangerous. Unfortunately, it claimed the life of an innocent child,” he said.
Ogwari was one of the villages that served as bases of the elusive LRA leader Joseph Kony and his brutal rebel force. The village lies just 20km from Kony’s ancestral home and the mystical Awere Hills.
Mr James Opiyo, the Orapwoyo Sub-county chairperson, who is also the chairperson for the Security Committee, advised residents to be on the lookout for any suspicious objects so as to avoid such incidents . In March, a 47-year-old woman was killed in a suspected bomb blast in Nimu Village, Lukung Sub-county in Lamwo District.
The victim was identified as Esther Ayao and she died instantly while clearing her garden. The bomb ripped the upper parts of her body.
In the last 20 years, the Acholi Sub-region, the epicentre of the over two-decades-long civil war, has recorded over 20 civilian fatalities as a result of bomb blasts.