By Kwanta Douglas –
Ugandan military bolstered supply routes into the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, where the army has established an advance base to chase down Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels implicated for fatal attacks in Kampala.
In the settlement of Mukakati, just before the entrance to Virunga Park in the DRC’s east, rows of army tents sprung up.
The Nobili border crossing, some 13 kilometers (eight miles) from the base, has been tearing up the dirt road with columns of Ugandan soldiers, 4x4s, tarpaulin-covered trucks, tanks, armoured vehicles, and heavy machine guns every day for about a week.
Two earthmoving machines arrived in Nobili on Monday morning, according to an AFP correspondent.
The road is “really not good”, Major Peter Mugisa, an information officer, told Ugandan TV. “We need to halt a bit for a week… (and) try to open up the road so that our heavy vehicles can move forward.”
There were also problems securing supplies of drinking water, he said.
Early on the morning of November 30, Ugandan aircraft and artillery pounded areas where bases of the Allied Democratic Forces had been spotted.
The ADF, which traces its origins back to Uganda and has been active since 1995 in the eastern DRC, where it is considered the most deadly of the armed groups operating in the region, is responsible for the massacre of thousands of civilians, kidnappings and looting.
After the Ugandan jet strikes, both countries’ armies said they were following up ground searches.
The Ugandan defence ministry said the joint operation was codenamed “Shujja” — the strong one, in Swahili.
AFP