Uganda rebels have kidnapped 40 young seminarists in the northern part of the country, the Vatican's missionary news agency MISNA reported on Sunday.
The rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked the Gulu diocese at midnight on Saturday and abducted 40 of the 136 seminarists, Italy-based MISNA said in a statement citing religious sources in the region.
One of the many local civilians hiding from the rebels in the diocese was killed during the fighting. The agency said government troops did not put up any resistance.
The Ugandan government has launched a ground and air offensive to crush a 15-year uprising by the LRA, a guerrilla group led by a self-styled prophet who wants to rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments.