(BSS/AFP) - The International Criminal Court opens war crimes hearings Tuesday against Joseph Kony, a brutal Ugandan rebel chief whose Lord`s Resistance Army was responsible for murdering and kidnapping tens of thousands.

Kony was the first suspected war criminal indicted by the ICC in 2005 and the hearing itself is the first ever held in absentia at the court, after decades of fruitless efforts to find him.

He faces 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, enslavement and sexual slavery, allegedly committed between July 2002 and December 2005 in northern Uganda.

The former Catholic altar boy headed the feared LRA whose marauding insurgency against the Ugandan government saw more than 100,000 killed and 60,000 children abducted, according to the United Nations.

The group became a byword for brutality, with escapees recounting horrors such as being forced to hack or even bite others to death, cannibalism, and drinking blood.

LRA fighters attacked Everlyn Ayo`s school when she was five years old. Now 39, she plans to listen to proceedings on her radio from the city of Gulu, a world away from the sterile ICC courtroom in the Hague.

"The rebels raided the school, killed and cooked our teachers in big drums and we were forced to eat their remains," Ayo told AFP.

She became a so-called "night commuter", one of thousands of children who trekked every night to shelters in an effort to avoid the horrors of the LRA.

"Many times, on our return to the village, we would find blood-soaked bodies. Seeing all that blood as a child traumatised my eyes," Ayo told AFP.

"For many years now, I do not see well. All I see is blood."

- `We cannot lose hope` -

At Tuesday`s "confirmation of charges" hearing -- the first of three days -- prosecutors will lay out the charges against Kony, born in September 1961.

After the hearing, ICC judges will then decide whether the charges merit a trial -- a process that occurs within 60 days.

In the Kony case, a trial is not possible as the ICC statutes do not allow a suspect to be tried in absentia.

Kony`s defence team, also participating in the hearing, has described the process as an "enormous expense of time, money and effort for no benefit at all".

But prosecutors say that holding a hearing would mean a quicker trial if Kony were ever to be found and brought to the Hague.

According to a UN panel of experts in June 2024, Kony is thought to have left Sudan due to the civil war there, relocating to a remote part of the Central African Republic.

His last-known appearance was in 2006 when he told a Western journalist he was "not a terrorist" and that stories of LRA brutality were "propaganda".

It is not known whether he is even still alive.

Prosecutors also hope a hearing will allow victims a sense of justice, a feeling shared by Stella Angel Lanam, captured by the LRA aged 10 and forced to become a child soldier.

"Even though we have passed through a lot, we cannot lose hope," said the 38-year-old, now director of a group offering counselling to victims.

"Will the government or Kony repair me back to the way I was? No. But at least I will get justice."