UN court awards Ugandan victims $56 million in reparations for crimes committed by convicted commander

By Hamza Kyeyune,

KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) - Judges at the International Criminal Court ruled Wednesday that nearly 50,000 victims of a convicted notorious commander in the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), should receive more than €52 million ($56 million) in total compensation.

Those covered by the ruling include former child soldiers and children born as a result of rapes and forced pregnancies.

The judges said that the commander, Dominic Ongwen, did not have the resources to pay the compensation and instead asked the tribunal's Trust Fund for Victims to help cover the cost.

“Tens of thousands of individuals suffered tremendous harm due to the unimaginable atrocities committed" when rebel fighters, led by Ongwen, attacked four camps for displaced people in northern Uganda, said presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt.

"Similarly, over 100 women and girls and thousands of children, boys and girls under the age of 15 suffered profound, multifaceted harm as a result of being kidnapped. Many were later subjected to sexual and gender based crimes and/or forced to serve as LRA soldiers, being kept in captivity with cruel methods of physical and psychological coercion,” he said.

“The chamber concludes that the direct victims of the attacks, the direct victims of sexual and gender based crimes and the children born out of those crimes, as well as the former child soldiers, suffered serious and long-lasting physical, moral and material harm,” said Schmitt.

He urged “states, organizations, corporations and private individuals to support the trust funds for victims' mission and efforts and contribute to its fundraising activities.”

Schmitt said victims would each receive €750 as a “symbolic award” while other reparations would come in the form of community-based rehabilitation programs.

Activists welcomed Ongwen’s convictions for offenses against women, which included rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery.

Ongwen was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2021 on 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, murder and child abduction.

He is serving his sentence in Norway.