Not a single country has contributed towards reparations for the victims and survivors of the Ugandan warlord Dominic Ongwen, despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) awarding €52.4m (£44m) for this purpose in February, according to the ICC Trust Fund for Victims (TFV).
The ICC reparations order—the largest in the court’s history—was issued after a 2021 ruling in which the court found Ongwen, a former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army militia group, guilty of various war crimes committed between 2002 and 2005, including murder, torture, sexual enslavement, the conscription of children into hostilities, and brutal attacks on four camps for internally displaced people in northern Uganda.
Despite the high-profile ruling, and appeals by the TFV and the court, efforts to raise reparations for approximately 50,000 people have stalled. Survivors of Ongwen’s crimes, who have waited more than 20 years for justice, may have to wait a decade longer for redress, based on current targets. A number died before or during the trial, and many have spent their lives grappling with the mental and physical injuries, worsened by aging, poverty and the trauma passed down through generations.
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