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Ugandan troops working as a part of an East African regional army power entered the east DR Congo border city of Bunagana on Friday, a military officer and witnesses stated.
The troopers are supposed to oversee the gradual withdrawal of the M23 rebel group, which has conquered swathes of territory in jap Congo since taking over arms again in late 2021.
The Ugandan contingent of the East African Community (EAC) power entered Bunagana on Friday morning, based on the power commander, Kenyan Normal Jeff Nyagah.
He defined to reporters on Friday that about 1,000 Ugandan troopers had crossed into the city — which lies on the Ugandan border — as a part of a contingent that’s anticipated to finally comprise 2,000 troops.
A Bunagana resident additionally instructed AFP that Ugandan troops had entered the city, with automobiles and tanks.
On Thursday night, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that the troops usually are not attributable to struggle the M23.
Slightly, they’ll “occupy a number of the positions that the M23 has handed over to the East African Pressure as a impartial power”, he stated.
The seven-nation EAC determined final June to create a army power, with the purpose of stabilising jap Congo, which has been tormented by armed teams for many years.
The M23 first got here to worldwide prominence in 2012, when it captured the jap Congolese metropolis of Goma earlier than being pushed out.
However the Tutsi-led group re-emerged from dormancy in late 2021, arguing that the federal government had ignored a promise to combine its fighters into the military.
It went on to seize massive chunks of North Kivu province and displace a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals, and has come near surrounding Goma.
March 30 was presupposed to mark the tip of the withdrawal of “all armed teams”, based on a timetable adopted in mid-February by the EAC. The deadline was not revered.
Kenyan Normal Nyagah stated that the M23 withdrawal can be “sequenced”.
The Democratic Republic of Congo accuses its smaller neighbour Rwanda of backing the M23, which america, other Western countries and independent UN experts agree with, however Kigali denies.
(AFP)
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