Uganda sends 1,000 more soldiers to east Congo near M23 conflict, sources say

Uganda has deployed more than 1,000 extra soldiers into east Congo in the last week near an area where the Kinshasa government is fighting M23 rebels, four diplomatic and U.N. sources said, heightening fears of a regional escalation.

Residents said they were moving towards the conflict zone.

The Rwandan-backed M23 recently captured regional capital Goma in an anarchic and mineral-rich part of Democratic Republic of Congo where wars in 1996-1997 and 1998-2003 drew in outside nations and killed millions, mostly from hunger and disease.

The extra Ugandan deployment north of Goma would raise its numbers there – officially to back Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s army against another rebel force – to about 4,000-5,000, according to U.N. sources.

Rwanda also has troops operating in east Congo.

Uganda has been helping Congo fight the Islamist Allied Defence Forces since 2021, and the new deployment of between 1,000-2,000 troops was under that auspice in a push called Operation Shujaa, the sources said.

In a region of complex and often-shifting alliances, U.N. experts say Uganda has also backed the ethnic Tutsi-led M23, which is the latest in a string of Rwanda-backed rebellions to take up arms in the name of Congo’s Tutsis.

Residents in the town of Butembo told Reuters they had seen columns of Ugandan soldiers heading south towards the front line with the M23 since the weekend.

Ugandan army spokesperson Felix Kulayigye denied a major new deployment, saying its forces had changed their “posture to offensive defence”, without giving further details.

Congo’s Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya did not respond when asked if more troops had arrived, but stressed the priority of Ugandan soldiers in the area was to fight the ADF though combat against M23 and Rwandan soldiers was also possible.

“There’s still a lot of suspicion about Uganda, a lot of suspicion about what’s generally happening with the M23,” he told Reuters.

UGANDA’S ‘SURGE’

Corneille Nangaa, head of the Alliance Fleuve Congo, an umbrella organisation that includes the M23 fighters, told Reuters that Uganda provided no support but nor did he expect hostility.