The mother of Joseph Kony, one of Africa's most brutal militia leaders, issued a dying wish to her son just before she died on 11 November. According to Betty Akello, the nurse at her side, she asked him to make peace and end 20 years of murder, mutilation and child kidnap.

 
Norah Anek, 86, the mother of the leader of the Lords Resistance Army, which has waged one of Africa's longest and most violent rebellions in northern Uganda, urged her son to lay down his arms.
 
"Moments before dying she said, 'Tell Joseph Kony to make peace,'" said Akello. William Okello, a community leader, said she believed her son was possessed with evil spirits.
 
The government of Uganda has been looking after Anek for the last 10 years as a way to induce Kony to stop fighting.
 
Kony has led the cult-like LRA for two decades and has been blamed for tens of thousands of murders, mutilations and kidnappings of children for use as soldiers and sex slaves.
 
He holds himself out a spiritual medium and says he is fighting to rule Uganda based on the 10 commandments.
 
Kony's rebellion has drawn in eastern Congo and southern Sudan and he is wanted by the international criminal court in The Hague for war crimes including murder, rape, sexual slavery, and enlisting of children as combatants.
 
Since the LRA began functioning in 2006, it is estimated Kony and his lieutenants may have forced more than 10,000 children into combat.
 
Source: The Guardian