Northern Uganda protest leaves nine dead

Lira- Uganda (PANA) -- At least nine people were killed in a violent protest that turned ethnic when the Langi ethnic group attacked on members of the Acholi tribe, killing several people in Lira town, 300 km north of Ugandan capital Kampala.
Among the dead counted by PANA were three women, including a nurse identified by her uniform, four middle aged men with heads shattered by stones, and two teenage boys, still in their school uniforms.
Business activities remained closed as the local population here woke up Wednesday morning to demonstrate against government's failure to avert the recent rebel massacres in which hundreds of their own people were brutally murdered by rebels.
The Langi attacked and vandalising key Lira district government administration offices and a police station where they burnt a police car, and three other government cars along the dusty and largely deserted streets.
The protest degenerated into ethnic clashes as the Langi attacked the unsuspecting Acholi in and around Lira, accusing the latter of taking part in killing their people.
More people were feared dead as the riotous Langi went further, setting ablaze houses and huts of Acholi in this small town of 100,000 people.
Journalists from the BBC-TV, Associated Press TV, Reuters TV, PANA and the local daily, New Vision, covering the restive area since last weekend's massacre, survived the melee after the army intervened during a siege by the Langi.
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by self-proclaimed prophet and mystic Joseph Kony, have of late concentrated their insurgency in Lira with devastating results at mainly civilian targets that have not been secured by government troops.
Last weekend's massacre of over 200 civilians in internally displaced persons camps in Lira district -- home to the predominantly Langi ethnic group -- was blamed on the Acholi ethnic group that forms the bulk of the LRA rebels.
For a long time, LRA operations concentrated in their native home of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts before spreading out neighbouring districts like Lira.