ICC investigator says Ugandan warlord Kony still 'active' as LRA attacks resurge in Central Africa
More than 20 years after his ICC indictment, fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony remains alive and active within the Lord's Resistance Army, according to a senior ICC investigator, as the group carries out new attacks in the Central African Republic.
Leonie von Braun, senior trial lawyer at the International Criminal Court and lead investigator in the case against Joseph Kony, has given an interview detailing the ongoing search for the fugitive rebel leader, more than two decades after his 2005 arrest warrant. Kony founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in 1987, seeking to overthrow Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and establish a theocratic state based on the ten biblical commandments. The group's insurgency ranks among Africa's longest and bloodiest, having killed more than 100,000 people and displaced over two million, primarily in northern Uganda.
Renewed attacks in Central Africa
Driven from Uganda by the national army in 2006, the LRA largely faded from view but continued operating in remote border areas of Central Africa. In recent months, authorities in the Central African Republic have reported a resurgence of attacks in the east and southeast of the country, with at least 25 children abducted in raids on villages attributed to Kony's militia.
Von Braun said the LRA is far weaker than in the 2000s, when it was organized into four brigades of several hundred fighters each. Today it operates on a much smaller scale but still follows the same survival strategy: abducting and enslaving civilians, particularly children, to rebuild its ranks and replenish fighters.
A violent, syncretic ideology
The LRA traces its roots to the Holy Spirit Movement, an earlier Ugandan rebel group founded by Alice Auma, who later ceded control to Kony. Von Braun explained that the LRA is not a strictly Christian movement but a syncretic one blending Christianity with local beliefs, and that indoctrination of abducted children relies primarily on extreme violence, severe punishments and initiation rites rather than religious teaching.
Kony confirmed alive
Von Braun said the latest intelligence confirms Kony, now reportedly 65, is still alive and remains active within the LRA's hierarchy, though his age likely keeps him away from front-line operations. The ICC continues pursuing his arrest, describing the case — covering the abduction of thousands of children and women between 2002 and 2005 — as the largest it has handled involving crimes against children, and says it remains determined to see him face justice despite depending on states to execute its warrants.
