Joseph Kony

Joseph Kony
Head of the Lord's Resistance Army
Incumbent
Assumed office August 1987
Preceded by	Office established
Personal details
Born	1961 (age 62–63) Odek, Northern Region, Protectorate of Uganda
Children	42 (as of 2006)[1]
Religion	Christianity
Military service
Allegiance	Lord's Resistance Army
Years of service	1987–present
Rank	General
Battles/wars	Lord's Resistance Army insurgency

Joseph Rao Kony (born c. 1961) is a Ugandan militant and warlord who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union, and various other governments.

An Acholi, Kony served as an altar boy in his childhood. After the Ugandan Civil War, Kony participated in the subsequent insurgency against president Yoweri Museveni under the Holy Spirit Movement or the Uganda People's Democratic Army before founding the LRA in 1987. Aiming to create a Christian state based on dominion theology, Kony directed the multi-decade Lord's Resistance Army insurgency. After Kony's terror activities, he was banished from Uganda and shifted to South Sudan. Kony described himself as a freedom fighter, struggling for a Christian Uganda.

Kony has long been one of Africa's most notorious and most wanted militant warlords. He has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child soldiers and sex slaves. Approximately 66,000 children became soldiers, and 2 million people were displaced internally from 1986 to 2009 by his forces. Kony was indicted in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, but he has evaded capture. He has been subject to an Interpol Red Notice at the ICC's request since 2006. Since the Juba peace talks in 2006, the Lord's Resistance Army no longer operates in Uganda. Sources claim that they are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), or South Sudan. In 2013, Kony was reported to be in poor health, and Michel Djotodia, president of the CAR, claimed he was negotiating with Kony to surrender.

By April 2017^[update], Kony was still at large, but his force was reported to have shrunk to approximately 100 soldiers, down from an estimated high of 3,000. Both the United States and Uganda ended the hunt for Kony and the LRA, believing that the LRA was no longer a significant security risk to Uganda. As of 2022, he is reported to be hiding in Darfur.