ICC orders record $56 million compensation for Uganda victims

THE HAGUE — Nearly 50,000 victims of Ugandan militia commander Dominic Ongwen should get a total of over €52 million ($56 million) in compensation, International Criminal Court judges ruled on Wednesday, in a record reparations order.

Judges said Ongwen, a former child soldier who rose through the ranks to become one of the top commanders of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), did not have the resources to pay the compensation himself.

Instead they asked the tribunal’s own Trust Fund for Victims to help cover the cost.

The reparations will be in the form of a symbolic individual payment of 750 euros per victim and additional collective reparations like rehabilitation programs and memorial sites.

Ongwen was convicted to 25 years in prison in 2021 on 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape, murder and child abduction. He is currently serving his sentence in Norway.

Led by fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, the LRA terrorized Ugandans for nearly 20 years as it fought the government of President Yoweri Museveni from bases in northern Uganda and neighboring countries. The militia has been largely wiped out, but Kony remains one of the ICC’s most wanted fugitives.

The total victims are estimated at almost 50,000 and the chamber calculated the total sum of the reparations it ordered to be 52.4 million euros.

The judges cautioned that “victims cannot expect payments to be executed soon after the issuance of this reparations order.”

In addition, the judges warned that the Trust Fund for Victims might not be able raise enough money to match the sum the judges ordered.

The fund relies entirely on voluntary contributions and at the beginning of 2023 it had under 20 million euros in its coffers and much of that was already pledged in other cases. — Reuters