Kony from Kony 2012 could finally be caught after spending 20 years in hiding

An infamous warlord who unexpectedly became one of the most famous people in the world last decade could soon be found.

A dozen years ago, the Kony 2012 campaign was launched to expose Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord accused of human rights violations that include murder, abduction, mutilation, child sex slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers.

He is the founder of Christian fundamentalist group the Lord's Resistance Army, and was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The goal of Kony 2012 - created by Jason Russell - was to try and make the world aware of the warlord's crimes by making him famous and for a time it succeeded as it went viral, though as the years have gone by minds have moved to other matters.

However, thus far he has evaded capture and spent years hiding from various attempts to track him down.

The Ugandan warlord who was made famous in a viral video in 2012 is reportedly close to being caught by a Russian mercenary group. (Adam Pletts/Getty Images)

Now, Rolling Stone has reported that Russian mercenaries working for the Wagner Group have been hunting Kony down after 14 defectors from his Lord's Resistance Army surrendered to a group affiliated with Wagner, who were posing as forces of the Central African Republic's government.

Those 14 people, two of them children, were taken to a town called Sam Ouandja and handed over to the Wagner Group, leading to concerns being raised over their welfare and whereabouts.

Days later, Wagner mercenaries attacked a village called Yemen which Rolling Stone reports is the site of a large marijuana plantation that funds militant groups.

Kony had recently been in the village and Rolling Stone's source said that his camp was within 10 miles.

They report that the Wagner Group burned the village and fired on Kony's camp, but that the warlord was not among the dead having fled before or during the attack.

The warlord's group have been designated terrorists, and Joseph Kony is wanted for crimes against humanity. (STUART PRICE/AFP via Getty Images)

Who are the Wagner Group?

The Wagner Group is a private military company which serves the Russian state, having participated in Putin's invasion of Ukraine as well as operations in in Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic among other countries.

They have supported regimes which are friendly to Putin's Russia and have been accused of committing war crimes including murder, torture, rape and robbery of civilians.

Until last year they were commanded by commanded by a man called Yevgeny Prigozhin, until an incident in June 2023 where Wagner mercenaries left Ukraine and appeared to be marching towards Moscow.

Vladimir Putin denounced the Wagner Group's actions as treason but an agreement appeared to be reached which brought the march to a halt.

Exactly two months later, Prigozhin and a number of other senior Wagner officials were killed in a plane crash.

According to the Ukrainian military, Wagner Group mercenaries have since returned to fight in Russia's invasion of Ukraine under new commanders appointed by Vladimir Putin.