UN court orders Uganda to pay Congo $325M for violence

By MIKE CORDER
Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Court of Justice has ordered Uganda to pay $325 million in compensation to Congo for violence in a long-running conflict between the African neighbors that began in the late 1990s. The compensation order issued Wednesday came more than 15 years after the U.N. court ruled in a complex, 119-page judgment that fighting by Ugandan troops in Congo breached international law. The sum awarded was well below the more than $11 billion in damages Congo had requested. The court broke down the compensation into different categories. It assessed $225 million for “loss of life and other damage to persons” that included rape, conscription of child soldiers and the displacement of up to 500,000 people.