UN wants Africa’s Kony hunters fully equipped by year-end

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations wants an African Union force hunting fugitive warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to be fully equipped by December, according to a UN strategy due to be presented to the world body’s Security Council today.

The AU force, which has US backing, aims to have a full strength of 5,000 troops from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Uganda, but lacks equipment, training, food and transportation.

“These troops lack almost everything,” AU special envoy on the LRA Francisco Madeira told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York yesterday.

“They lack boots, they lack uniforms, they lack food rations and sometimes they lack training. So there is a need for these things to be supplied.”

Abou Moussa, UN special envoy and head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa, is slated to brief the 15-member UN Security Council today on the UN regional strategy to address the threat and impact of the LRA.

The strategy, obtained by Reuters, requires UN countries and agencies to ensure the AU force is “adequately equipped, including with regard to air capabilities, communications, office and living accommodations, medical support, and fuel and rations, as soon as possible, and no later than December 2012.”