US Uses Advanced Intelligence to Hunt LRA in Central Africa

In a one-room radio station deep in the forests of the Central African Republic, an announcer broadcasts a message to those kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army.

Come home, the message says, your family will accept you, no matter what atrocities you may have committed.

Emmanuel Daba, one of the hosts at the U.S.-funded Radio Zereda, was kidnapped by the LRA in 2008 and served as a porter for the rebels for a year, before he escaped.

“We conducted raids on villages in South Sudan and the Congo,” he said. “We killed a lot of people, with machetes, with sticks and clubs.”

Daba was one of the thousands abducted by the LRA since it first launched an insurgency in Uganda 20 years ago, led by the notorious and elusive commander Joseph Kony.

Since then, the group has spread out into South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. Once numbering in the thousands, the LRA now is believed to have only a few hundred fighters at most.

While their numbers have diminished, their ability to inflict terror has not. The United Nations estimates that 465,000 people were displaced last year because of the LRA threat.