23 May 2004	Sunday	03 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

KAMPALA, May 22: The death toll in a raid on a northern Ugandan village by rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has climbed to 42, and hundreds of locals are still fleeing the region, relief agencies said Saturday.

"We went to the area to assess the situation on Friday and confirmed that 42 people were killed, and on our way there, we passed by an endless queue of people carrying their belongings heading towards Gulu town," Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) country representative Jam Kolaas told AFP by telephone from Gulu.

The army has said that 26 people died in the attack on Thursday.

Kolaas said that NRC's Noah's Ark Centre in Gulu had received over 1,000 new arrivals seeking refuge - many of them children travelling unaccompanied from Lokodi in Bungatira sub-county, 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Gulu town.

He said many of the children looked tired and frightened after the attack, which he said was staged by 150 to 250 rebels.

Army spokesman Major Saban Bantariza said the village was not supposed even to be there, as the location was used as a crossing point for rebels.

Bantariza said that the commanders of the two battalions deployed in the area had been arrested and would be charged with negligence of duty and for insufficiently protecting civilians.

"One of the commanders was the first to clash with that group of rebels and killed three of them, chased them until they left his area of operation, but failed to inform his colleague in that area that the enemy had entered his territory so that he could prepare," he said.

"His colleague has also been arrested because that location was not fit for a settlement.

Five days earlier, the LRA had attacked Pagak camp, also in Gulu, clubbing to death 39 people, mainly women and children,and forcing over 10,000 people to flee the camp.

The LRA has been fighting President Museveni's secular government since 1988.-AFP