Uganda holds dozens of fleeing M23 rebels after Congo clashes

February 24, 2017 Chigozie Ekwenye Africa, Hot News, Terrorism, Uganda 0

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda is holding dozens of fighters from the M23 rebel group who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo after clashing with troops there this week, the Ugandan military said on Thursday.

Richard Karemire, Uganda’s military spokesman, told Reuters that 44 M23 fighters were being held at a camp in the southwestern town of Kisoro.

He rejected accusations made by DRC that Uganda was enabling the fighters to revive their insurgency.

“They fled and they are at a camp… pending determination of their next destination,” he said.

M23, the largest of a number of rebel movements that have sown chaos and bloodshed in mineral-rich eastern Congo for years, once controlled swathes of territory there.

Hundreds of the group’s fighters, however, fled to Uganda in 2013 after a combined United Nations and Congolese force routed their rebellion.

Since November, authorities in Kinshasa have said Uganda was allowing M23 rebels to slip back into eastern Congo to re-launch their rebellion.

The latest fighting between the Congolese army, FARDC, and M23 rebels took place from Monday to Wednesday in Rutshuru territory in DRC’s North Kivu province, close to Bunagana, a town on the border with Uganda.   Continued…