By Francis Kwera

KAMPALA, March 30 (Reuters) - A British charity said on Friday it had information 66 children had been killed in an operation by Ugandan soldiers against cattle rustlers, but the Ugandan army denied the report.

Save the Children said it met 256 people whose accounts indicated the children were shot by troops, run over by armoured cars or crushed as animals stampeded during the February 12 raid in Kotido district, in remote northeastern Karamoja region.

A Ugandan military spokesman denied any children had died.

The charity said it had not found "specific physical evidence" of the alleged killings, but said the numerous and consistent reports from locals demanded serious attention.

"Reports of children being killed in indiscriminate, illegal and inhumane ways is absolutely devastating," its Uganda country director, Valter Tinderholt, said in a statement.

"Such allegations must be fully investigated and those involved brought to account."

Lieutenant Henry Obbo, the Ugandan army spokesman for the region, rejected the report.

"We discovered a hidden herd of thousands of stolen cattle. We went after them and the herdsmen -- hardcore adult criminals -- opened fire and we pursued them," Obbo told Reuters.

ARMY DENIES

He said the cattle rustlers had taken to dressing in women's clothes or school uniforms to dupe military patrols.

"We never targeted children at any time," he said.

Save the Children said any probe should be led by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and followed closely by a contact group of diplomats based in Uganda.

Last November, the U.N. children's charity Unicef accused Uganda's military of using "indiscriminate and excessive" force in Karamoja, and of killing women and children.

The drought-prone region has suffered banditry and inter-clan warfare for decades, fuelled by disputes over shrinking water supplies and a flood of cheap, semi-automatic weapons trafficked from conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

Cattle rustlers regularly raid villages throughout the pastoral area, looting valuable livestock and often leaving a trail of dead bodies. Last year, troops backed by helicopter gunships launched a forceful disarmament programme in the area.

But the conflict has worsened, and aid agencies say clashes between Karamojong clans and with pastoralists in neighbouring Kenya have left the region one of Africa's least developed.

The army said more than 50 cattle rustlers and four soldiers were killed in February in a sharp escalation of the fighting.

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