KAMPALA At least 10 people were killed and an unknown number of people abducted in a week-long spate of raids by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels in western Uganda's Bundibugyo district, humanitarian and government sources told AFP here on Monday. The attacks, which came after a a six-week lull and period of calm, included an ambush on Friday, four kilometres (two miles) from Bundibugyo town, during which three civilians and three Ugandan soldiers were killed, the sources said.

In the latest incident, reported on the local western Uganda Voice of Toro radio on Monday, the rebels abducted a homeguard and seriously wounded another on Sunday during a raid in Bubukwanga sub-county, on the slopes of the Ruwenzori mountains. Other attacks included four people killed on Monday last week near Bundibugyo town, and the abduction last Thursday of three people from Aktanga, three kilometres from Bundibugo town.

Humanitarian sources told AFP that they believed that the raids were linked to the launching two weeks ago of a Ugandan government program to resettle an estimated 100,000 people, displaced by rebel activity in the district, into smaller camps nearer their villages and fields. The displaced are currently fed by the UN World Food Program (WFP), but which only provides food for 50,000 of them, leaving the government to find ways to make up the shortfall.

The move back to the villages appears to have angered the rebels who, until now, have been able to feed themselves on crops growing in abandoned farms. Government representative in the region, Edward Masiga, told AFP that he believed the rebels both wanted to prevent civilians from returning to their fields and had timed their attacks to coincide with President Yoweri Musevenis current tour of western Uganda. (AFP)