The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) have captured Kiwanja Town in the Rutshuru territory, North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from the M23 rebels, Uganda media reports.
This brings the total number of towns captured by the UPDF since their deployment to the region to three.
A contingent of 5,000 soldiers was deployed to the DRC on March 30 as part of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) for a peace keeping mission.
The Ugandan contingent as part of the regional force are fully deployed to Kiwanja in the Rutshuru territory.
However, while the Uganda defence force are capturing cities from Rwanda-backed M23, an Islamic rebel group linked to Uganda is killed around 20 people at the weekend.
“The enemy ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) ambushed farmers at around 4 pm (1400 GMT) on Friday near the village of Enebula,” local civil society leader Patrick Mukohe told AFP by phone.
France24 reports that Mukohe said he had counted 21 bodies of men and women at the site of the killing, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of the town of Oicha, in North Kivu province.
Jules Kambale, who works in the Oicha hospital morgue, said it had received 19 bodies.
Charles Ehuta Omeanga, the regional military administrator, confirmed the attack, which he attributed to “ADF terrorists”, but said he was not in a position to give a definitive toll.
The ADF, originally insurgents in Uganda, gained a foothold in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s and has since been accused of killing thousands of civilians, becoming the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the deeply troubled region.
