Uganda’s armed forces have killed more than 100 Uganda-based rebels during a high-scale offensive in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Ugandan army said in a statement Wednesday that several other rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were wounded in aerial attacks and artillery raids.
The military says the operation has been carried out from Ugandan territory.
The rebels were accused of carrying out the attack that left several UN peacekeepers dead earlier this month.
On December 7, armed assailants attacked a base of the United Nations peacekeepers in eastern DRC, killing at least 15 peacekeepers who were mostly from Tanzania.
The base, which is located about 45 kilometers from the town of Beni, has been repeatedly attacked by rebels from the ADF. It is home to the peacekeeping mission’s rapid intervention force, which has a rare mandate to go on the offensive.
The UN described the attack in Congo as the worst in the recent UN history as well as a war crime.
The ADF originated in Uganda as a rebel force against the government and carried out deadly bombings in the 1990s. A military campaign forced them to relocate to eastern Congo.
The DRC had one of the most brutal colonial rules before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship and back-to-back civil wars that left the mineral-rich country poor and politically unstable.
In 2006, the UN mission helped carry out Congo’s first free and fair elections in 46 years, paving the way for President Joseph Kabila to be elected for a five-year term.
His second term in office ended in 2016. Under the DR Congo’s constitution, Kabila is banned from seeking a third term. However, he is authorized to stay in office until his successor is elected but he decided to remain in power. This prompted the UN to urge the Congolese authorities “to respect the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Congolese Constitution.”
The delay in holding an election has flared up violence in the country.
