16 February 2011 Last updated at 06:51

Audio slideshow: Living in fear

Their leader is often dismissed as a madman and his fighters as little more than murderous thugs, yet the messianic Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army is Africa's longest-surviving and most-feared rebel group.

Over the past two years the LRA, which once claimed to base its ideology on the Ten Commandments, has killed 2,500 people and abducted nearly 3,000 more - many of them children.

For Radio 4's Today programme, reporter Mike Thomson travelled to Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate one of the world's most under-reported crises.

To see the enhanced content on this page, you need to have JavaScript enabled and Adobe Flash installed.

WARNING: This slideshow contains an image of a victim of mutilation.

Interviews by Mike Thomson. Field production by Lewis James. Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 16 February 2011.

Related:

Who can stop the LRA?

'Forced to kill' in cold blood

More audio slideshows:

Africa Through a Lens

Masai warriors graduate

On the map - Africa's biggest slum

Sea nomads