Ugandan military man killed in attack by alleged members of the Congolese armed group Kodeko كود

Madrid, July 16. (European Press) –

Authorities confirmed that at least one Ugandan military died on Friday in an attack carried out by alleged members of the Congolese armed group Cooperativa para el Desarrollo de Congo (CODECO), which is mainly active in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“A military unit in Zew repelled an attack by 20 men disguised as forests,” the commander of the Ugandan army’s ground forces, Muhozi Kinirugaba, said through his account on the social networking site Twitter.

“We captured two, beat four, and seized a pistol, in addition to bows and arrows,” he said, before adding, “Unfortunately, a soldier died,” stressing that the authorities suspected the attackers were members of CODECO.

“We will continue to teach very difficult lessons to CODECO, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – which operates in eastern DRC and have ties to the jihadist Islamic State – and any other rebel group in the DRC,” Kinirogaba settled.

The Ugandan newspaper “Daily Monitor” quoted military sources as saying that the rebels attacked an army position in Zombo district in the West Nile sub-region before adding that they were armed with pistols, machetes, bows and arrows.

CODECO, which has scaled down its attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recent months after an operation of contacts with the authorities, is made up mostly of members of the Lendu community, after an increase in attacks since June 2019 and clashes between Lendu and local communities. Hema them in Ituri.

These incidents brought to mind the conflict between the Hema and the Lendu between 1999 and 2007 over grazing rights and political representation, which left nearly 50,000 people dead, in a region shaken by the operations of various armed groups.