Our thoughts today are with the rangers and their wives who were killed by Joseph Konys Lords Resistance Army in Garamba National Park in the DR Congo. On Friday twenty people were killed in a raid by the LRA rebels on a park ranger station in at Nagero in Orientale Province in northern Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to Reuters two park rangers and their wives were killed, our sources indicate that up to 8 rangers and some of their wives were killed.

Ten rebels were also killed in the battle that lasted four hours. It was part of the three-week-old multinational assault on LRA strongholds in northeastern Congo, which by many accounts has gone disastrously wrong. The multinational military offensive against the LRA which is sanctioned by the UN has not been executed well according to the media and sources on the ground.

Forces led by Uganda and including Congolese and South Sudanese soldiers began bombing LRA bases in the park on December 14 after the rebels’ leader Joseph Kony again failed to sign a deal to end his rebellion against Uganda’s government. Although Ugandan and Congolese officials have said the offensive is going well, coalition forces have so far failed to locate Kony, who along with two deputies is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In response to the attacks, his rebellion is now waging a brutal campaign against local villagers and so far between 400 and 500 civilians have been killed in attacks in towns of Doruma and Faradje, which had been left undefended by coalition forces.

One person has described the outcome of this failed military offensive against the LRA as the equivalent of “stirring up a hornets nest”…the situation is much worse now than before.