By Kwanta Douglas –
Uganda has moved more troops and equipment into eastern DR Congo, including armoured vehicles, witnesses at the border claimed, on the third day of an operation against the Allied Democratic Forces ADF rebel group.
“At around 4 p.m., we saw another Ugandan army column cross,” said Tony Kitambala, a freelance journalist at the Nobili border checkpoint. “They’re in armored trucks, and there are also water tankers,” says the narrator.
Two light infantry tanks were seen in the convoy in a video shot by another local.
Ugandan troops crossed into North Kivu region for the first time on Tuesday, hours after their armed forces initiated air and artillery assaults from Ugandan territory.
Special troops from both armies are continuing to search the area targeted in Tuesday’s air and artillery strikes, according to the militaries of the two countries.
The target is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — a group blamed for massacres in eastern DRC and attacks in the Ugandan capital, and which the Islamic State group claims as an affiliate.
ADF was historically a Ugandan rebel coalition whose biggest group comprised Muslims opposed to Ugandan President Museveni.
The group established itself in eastern DRC in 1995, later becoming the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the troubled region.
DR Congo’s Catholic Church says the ADF has killed around 6,000 civilians since 2013 while a respected monitor, the Kivu Security Tracker, blames it for more than 1,200 deaths in the area alone since 2017.
Uganda moved against the ADF after accusing it of a string of recent attacks on its soil that have been claimed by IS.
A Congolese military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Museveni’s son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, was leading the operation on the Ugandan side.
Uganda’s defence ministry said that Marcos de Sa Affonso Da Costa, the head of the UN’s mission in DRC MONUSCO, had met Uganda’s defence chief Wilson Mbasu Mbadi in Kampala.
The MONUSCO chief said during the meeting he had no “objections” to the joint Uganda-DRC operation, the ministry reported.
A spokesman for the UN force, Mathias Gillmann, on Wednesday stressed the need for strong coordination between all sides.
Niger’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdou Abarry, urged support for the deal between Kampala and Kinshasa. Abarry is also the current president of the Security Council.
AFP