UN court orders Uganda to pay $325m in reparations to DR Congo
Mai Gail 
The International Court of Justice orders Kampala to pay the damages which is a fraction of the $11bn demanded by Kinshasa.
The United Nations’ top court has ordered Uganda to pay the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) $325m in reparations over a brutal war between the neighbours that began in the late 1990s.
According to the court through the court’s president, US judge Joan E Donoghue, on Wednesday. "the reparation awarded to the DRC for damage to persons and to property reflects the harm suffered by individuals and communities as a result of Uganda’s breach of its international obligations,”. The court also stated that the assessed $225m was for different categories of damages “loss of life and other damage to persons” and it included rape, conscription of child soldiers and the displacement of up to 500,000 people.
The compensation order came more than 15 years after the UN court ruled in a complex. It assessed another $40m for damage to property and $60m for damage to natural resources, including the plundering of gold, diamonds, timber and other goods by Ugandan forces or rebels they supported.
The ruling by the Hague-based court is a blow to DRC after a long legal battle for compensation over the devastating 1998-2003 conflict that left thousands of people dead and many devastated.
Judge Donoghue said there was “insufficient evidence to support the DRC’s claim of 180,000 civilian deaths for which Uganda owes reparation”.
“The court considers that the evidence presented to it suggests that the number of deaths for which Uganda owes reparations falls in the range of 10,000 to 15,000 persons,” she added.
