Ugandan soldiers have left the East African force deployed in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Ugandan army announced on Wednesday December 13, a few weeks after Kinshasa decided not to renew the mandate of this regional operation, which it considers ineffective.
Nearly 250 South Sudanese and 300 Kenyan soldiers from this Community of East African States (EAC) force have already left Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. Nearly a thousand Burundian soldiers also left the DRC on Sunday. The remaining Kenyan and South Sudanese soldiers are expected to leave in early January.
Ugandan soldiers have “crossed the Bunagana border into Uganda after withdrawing from the mission area in the DRC,” the Ugandan army announced in a statement, without specifying the number of soldiers. “We have brought our forces home and believe we have achieved the mission objectives,” said Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye.
The soldiers of the East African force had begun arriving in Goma in November 2022, around a year after the resurgence in North Kivu of the M23 (“March 23 Movement”) rebellion, which, with the support of Rwanda, according to many sources, had seized vast swathes of the province.
At the time, the Congolese authorities invited the EAC to deploy its forces to liberate areas conquered by the rebels. But the Congolese quickly became highly critical of the EAC troops, criticizing them for cohabiting with the rebels rather than forcing them to lay down their arms.