Garissa, Kanya - A former Ugandan rebel leader and self-declared prophetess whose movement gave rise to Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has died in a refugee camp in Kenya, officials said on Thursday.
The cause of death of Alice Lakwena, who was in her 50s and lived in exile in north Kenya's remote Ifo camp, was unknown.
"The death of Lakwena was reported this morning and the police have taken over the matter," local district police officer Dennis Ogola said, adding she died on Wednesday night.
Lakwena led the Holy Spirit Movement, a cult-like guerrilla group that believed blessed water could guard fighters from bullets and rebelled against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's government after he seized power in a 1986 coup.
A self-professed mystic and visionary from northern Uganda's Acholi tribe, Lakwena amassed thousands of followers but fled to Kenya after being defeated in 1987.
As she departed, Kony -- a young man from a neighbouring village believed to be her second cousin though many call Lakwena his "aunt" -- launched his own particularly vicious insurgency.
Kony's fighters have terrorised northern Uganda since then, massacring civilians, mutilating victims and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.
In July, his LRA began talks with Museveni's government.
An Ifo camp neighbour said Lakwena's relatives delayed reporting her death out of shock that a prophetess with supposed magical powers could have passed away like any mortal.
"They said she was a spiritual leader who will never die. They only accepted her death this morning," said Somali refugee Abdi Kheir, who lived in the hut next door.
Born Alice Auma in 1956, she changed her name to "Lakwena" -- which means "messenger" in Acholi -- after claiming to have been possessed by a spirit of that name.
Her movement blended Christianity with traditional African animism and witchcraft, for instance sprinkling her fighters with water supposedly blessed by the Holy Spirit that would make them bullet-proof and invincible in battle.
Unlike the LRA, whose insurgency was largely confined to northern Uganda and parts of neighbouring southern Sudan, Lakwena came closer to her goal of toppling the government.
Her forces swept south quickly, spreading panic through the capital Kampala, before being defeated by Museveni's military in the forests of Iganga, just 80 miles (130 km) east of the city.
Kenyan police ferried her body on Thursday from the camp to a nearby mortuary, accompanied by three of her relatives.