UN envoy calls on Lord's Resistance Army to stop activities

The UN envoy to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) affected areas and his African Union counterpart have urged the rebel group to stop activities and return to normal life, a UN spokesman said here Monday. "The two envoys called upon the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, to lay down his arms," Farhan Haq, acting UN deputy spokesman, said quoting a press release by the two envoys. Abou Moussa, a special representative of the UN secretary-general and head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa, and Francisco Madeira, the African Union special envoy for the LRA, have recently visited the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. Concerned that lingering instability in the CAR after a power grab by rebels has stalled operations to neutralize the LRA, the UN Security Council in May urged regional actors to cooperate on all fronts to tackle the crises. The guerrilla group led by Kony is also blamed for the killing of more than 100,000 people, abduction of between 60,000 and 100,000 children and the displacement of 2.5 million people.