KAMPALA (Reuters) - Two people were killed and seven seriously wounded in Uganda when an artillery round blew up as a man tried to melt it down for scrap metal, police said on Saturday.Police cordoned off the area where the shell was found, searching for other munitions after the incident, which happened on Thursday in Amuria, a remote part of the once war-ravaged eastern Teso region.
"We understand this man picked up a shell and tried to melt it for scrap. He put it in the fire and it exploded," Francis Agwoka, acting police chief for the region, told Reuters by telephone. "Two people were killed and seven others rushed to hospital critically injured. We are sealing off the area to look for more bombs."
The Teso region was attacked by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in 2003, spreading a war that had hitherto affected only northern Uganda. Hundreds of thousands of civilians fled to refugee camps.
Though they were repelled by the army and local government-backed militia, aid workers say parts of Teso remain littered with mines and abandoned ammunition. Police have warned people in Teso not to touch unfamiliar metal objects.