Kony's cannibals: Commander 'ordered his men to cook and eat captured civilians and use rape to train child fighters in Uganda', Police drop Kids Company 'sex abuse' investigation

describes extreme violence





Kony's cannibals: Commander 'ordered his men to cook and eat captured civilians and use rape to train child fighters in Uganda'

    Dominic Ongwen, himself a child soldier, 'turned children into militants'
    He was operating as a commander for Joseph Kony's rebel army
    A court today heard he ordered his soldiers to cook and eat human flesh
    He appeared at the International Criminal Court to face war crime charges
By Corey Charlton for MailOnline  21 January 2016

A former Lord's Resistance Army commander ordered his men to cook and eat the flesh of abducted civilians and used rape to turn children into sex slaves or soldiers, a court has heard.

Dominic Ongwen, himself a former child soldier who rose through the ranks of Joseph Kony's rebel group, is also accused of slaughtering locals in a campaign of terror across Uganda.

Surrendering last January after years on the run as one of the world's most wanted criminals, he faces 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court....

Prosecutor Ben Gumpert told judges Kony found children easiest to shape by a process of brutalisation into the fighters he needed....

Ongwen, by turns generous and cruel, played a role in this.

Mr Gumpert said: 'Witnesses tell of how he instructed his personal escorts to administer dreadful beatings and... even, on at least one occasion, to kill, cook and eat civilians who had been abducted in attacks.'....

'Nursing mothers whose babies slowed up the progress or who simply cried too loudly saw them killed or thrown into the bush and left behind,' Mr Gumpert said.

A video taken by Ugandan authorities showed thatched huts burned to the ground and abandoned corpses of children in shallow graves in the aftermath of an attack.

More than 130 people - many of them children and babies - died in these attacks and dozens of others were abducted, prosecutors said.

He added that Ongwen played a crucial role in transforming abducted children into soldiers, whom Kony saw as 'most easily molded into the ruthless killers he needed'.

They were forced to perform 'individual acts of torture and murder designed to convince recently abducted children that they were so steeped in blood that there could be no acceptance for them back in civilian society,' Mr Gumpert said....

The LRA is accused of slaughtering more than 100,000 people and abducting 60,000 children in its bloody rebellion against Kampala.

It first emerged in northern Uganda in 1986, where it claimed to fight in the name of the Acholi ethnic group against the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

But over the years it has moved freely across porous regional borders, shifting from Uganda to sow terror in southern Sudan before heading into northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and finally crossing into southeastern Central African Republic in March 2008.

Combining religious mysticism with a bent for astute guerrilla tactics and bloodthirsty ruthlessness, Kony has turned scores of young girls into his personal sex slaves while claiming to be fighting to impose the Bible's Ten Commandments....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3409871/ICC-prosecutors-seek-trial-Lords-Resistance-Army-ex-commander.html


Police drop Kids Company 'sex abuse' investigation
Tom Marshall 28 January 2016

A police investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse linked to failed charity Kids Company has been dropped.

Detectives found no evidence to justify any charges after studying 32 pieces of information or intelligence, Scotland Yard announced.

A spokesman for the Met added: "Nor have we identified any failings by the charity in respect of them carrying out their duty to safeguard children or vulnerable adults."

The Met launched an inquiry into reports of alleged physical and sexual abuse in July "following the receipt of information from a journalist"....

These reports concerned allegations or information relating to children and staff based at the charity, the force said, adding: "However, the majority were third-party reports which were vague in detail."

Officers carried out "detailed and extensive inquiries" to establish the veracity of the information, speaking to a number of individuals connected to the charity. No-one was arrested or interviewed under caution in connection with the investigation.

An incident which had previously been investigated by police and resulted in a "male adult service user" of the charity receiving a three-month suspended sentence for assaulting a member of staff was included within the reports.

The Met spokesman added: "Aside from this case, to date the Met has identified no evidence of criminality within the 32 reports which would reach the threshold to justify a referral to the Crown Prosecution Service....
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/police-drop-kids-company-sex-abuse-probe-a3167501.html