KAMPALA – Two young women and wives of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader Joseph Kony were on Friday May, 21, 2026, received at the UPDF Airbase in Entebbe after being flown in from Bangui, Central African Republic (CAR).
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!According to Col. Chris Magezi, the UPDF Acting Director of Public Information, the repatriated women are Ugandan Ikol Grace, 33, along with her two children, Ayuma Maria, 8, and Oryema Bosco, 2. Also among them is South Sudanese national Aniyessi Teregina, also 33, who holds one of Kony’s orphaned children, aged 2.
They were received and escorted from CAR to Uganda by the Chief of Defence Intelligence and Security (CDIS), Major General Richard Otto.
“Ikol Grace was abducted at age 10 in 2003 from Amuria District, while Aniyessi Teregina was abducted in 2006 at age 13 from Yambio, Western Equatorial State in South Sudan,” Col. Magezi stated in a press release.
He added that Aniyessi would be facilitated to travel back to her home in South Sudan.
Magezi further explained that a total of eight wives of Kony and 13 children escaped captivity in January this year after their camp was attacked by an armed group in southern Darfur near the border of CAR, Sudan, and South Sudan.
“The other women, who are Congolese and CAR citizens, along with their children, were handed over to their respective families in their countries,” he said.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is a militant armed group that was formed in northern Uganda in 1987. Led by the self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, it is notorious for extreme violence, including the systematic abduction of children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves.
The group gained worldwide notoriety for its atrocities, which include rape, mutilation, massacres, and forcing abductees to commit unspeakable acts of violence against their own communities. During the height of the conflict, over 2 million people were displaced in northern Uganda.
In 2023 and 2024, more than 150 LRA returnees, including some of Kony’s wives and children were repatriated to Uganda from CAR after escaping LRA captivity.
As of 2026, the LRA has been significantly weakened. Joseph Kony remains at large, though his remaining faction is believed to still operate as a localized threat in the remote border regions of Central Africa and South Sudan.
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