DR Congo: UN steps up border patrols after reported rebel arms trafficking to Uganda

United Nations peacekeepers are patrolling the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda after reports of arms trafficking by the rebel Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) across DRC and southern Sudan.

“This concern stems from information on the seizure in Uganda of vehicles transporting arms,” UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Amadou Gueye told the weekly news briefing in Kinshasa, the capital, yesterday.

“Measures to halt this traffic include first of all continuing to patrol this frontier with our units deployed in the sector,” he said, stressing that the DRC and Ugandan armies are also cooperating closely in the matter.

The LRA terrorized northern Uganda for two decades before spilling over into neighbouring countries, including the DRC, and has been accused of committing atrocities such as mutilations and the recruitment of child soldiers.