Turkiye to repeat offer to host Ukraine-Russia peace talks at London summit, source says

KAMPALA: The Ugandan army confirmed Sunday it has sent troops to another town in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo to fight local armed groups, amid fears a raging conflict could spiral into a wider war.

“Our troops have entered Mahagi town and we are in control,” Uganda’s defense and military affairs spokesman Felix Kulayigye said Sunday.

The deployment was requested by the Congolese army following alleged massacres of civilians carried out by a militia known as the Cooperative for the Development of Congo, or Codeco, he said, without providing further details.

Mahagi is in Ituri province, which borders Uganda, where at least 51 people were killed on Feb. 10 by armed men affiliated with Codeco, according to humanitarian and local sources.

Codeco claims it defends the interests of the Lendu community, mainly composed of farmers, against the Hema community, mainly herders.

Uganda already has thousands of troops in other parts of Ituri under an agreement with the Congolese government.

Last month, Uganda announced its troops had “taken control” of the provincial capital, Bunia.

Ituri is just north of the provinces of North and South Kivu, which at the end of January fell under the control of the anti-government M23 armed group, which is backed by neighboring Rwanda.

Analysts fear that Uganda and Rwanda’s growing presence in eastern Congo could lead to a repeat of the so-called Second Congo War, which lasted from 1998 to 2003, involving many African countries and resulting in millions of deaths from violence, disease and famine.

Meanwhile, Congo’s army denied on Sunday that 20 fighters linked to the Rwandan genocide had been captured on its territory, calling a video of their handover to Rwanda “faked.”

The statement came after the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group in eastern Congo said on Saturday it had captured fighters from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, a militia founded by ethnic Hutus who took part in the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

Rwanda has long pointed to the alleged presence of the FDLR in eastern Congo to justify its support for the M23.

With Rwanda’s backing, the M23 has seized swaths of the Congo’s troubled, mineral-rich east in recent months, including the key provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu.

The M23 released a video showing its forces handing over 20 alleged FDLR fighters to Rwanda at a border post between the two countries.

“This is a faked incident in poor taste orchestrated with the sole aim of discrediting our army,” the Congolese armed forces chiefs of staff said in a statement.

“This is part of the Rwandan strategy to justify the invasion of parts of the DRC’s territory,” it added.

“The Rwandan authorities, who specialize in the art of lies and manipulation, took old FDLR detainees, dressed them in new military fatigues, and passed them off as FDLR fighters newly captured in Goma.”

The Congolese high command also accused the Rwandan army of “summary executions” of wounded and ill soldiers at a field hospital in Goma, which “constitutes a war crime and crime against humanity,” it said.

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police were searching for their chief on Sunday after a court order for his arrest was issued over the killing of an officer during a botched raid, an official said.

Inspector-General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon has been missing since a magistrate in the island’s south ordered his arrest on Friday, following allegations that he had ordered the raid on Dec. 31, 2023.

“We went to his home to carry out the arrest warrant but he had gone into hiding, leaving behind his bodyguards,” a senior officer said.

He said the court had also imposed a foreign travel ban on Tennakoon, 53, to stop him from leaving the island.

Tennakoon ordered a unit from Colombo to search a hotel in Weligama, a resort town about 150 kilometers south of the capital, for illegal drugs.

Local police, unaware of the undercover operation, confronted the unit from the capital, sparking a gunbattle in which one officer was killed and another critically wounded. No drugs were found at the hotel.

Tennakoon was controversially named as police chief in November 2023 but his appointment was challenged in the Supreme Court, which suspended him in July pending the completion of a hearing.

He was given the top job despite the highest court finding in a separate case that he had tortured a suspect.

The court had ordered Tennakoon to pay half a million rupees ($1,600) to the victim but the government at the time ignored judicial orders to take disciplinary action against him.

Separately, Sri Lanka’s leftist president recently received a boost from Washington, with the International Monetary Fund greenlighting a roughly $330 million payout under an existing loan agreement.

The IMF board approved the latest review of an existing four-year loan agreement, noting in a statement that Sri Lanka’s program performance “has been strong,” and that almost all quantitative targets had been met.

The board’s approval gives Sri Lanka “immediate access” to around $334 million to support its economic policies and reform program, the IMF said, and follows an earlier staff level agreement struck with the Sri Lankan authorities.

“Reforms in Sri Lanka are bearing fruit and the economic recovery has been remarkable,” IMF deputy managing director Kenji Okamura said in a statement.