More than 22 soldiers died in a double crash of Ugandan army helicopters. The two incidents occurred on Monday and Tuesday in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda. The information was explained this Thursday, September 29, 2022 by a spokesman for the Congolese army.
The first crash occurred on Monday near the village of Boga, in the Ituri province of the DRC. According to an unnamed source in the Ituri army, 22 people were killed, including three soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo. No details yet on the cause, the number of passengers on board and the number of survivors.
On Tuesday, another helicopter belonging to the Ugandan army crashed in the Kabarole border area between the two countries. This second tragedy occurred during joint operations between the Congolese and Ugandan armies to hunt down the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group.
Circumstances of the tragedies not yet elucidated
According to the information provided by the press service of the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the second helicopter hit the wires of the electric current before crashing. The accident killed one Ugandan and one DRC soldier. The sad news was confirmed on Tuesday evening by Mak Hazukayi, spokesman for joint military operations between the two countries.
The two helicopters “were on offensive operations against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists,” said the same unnamed source within the army in Ituri.
The Congolese and Ugandan armies have not communicated on the circumstances of these crashes, nor on the reasons.
The Ugandan army has been operating in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo since the end of November last year alongside Congolese troops against the ADF, a rebellion of Ugandan origin. Since 2019, Daech has presented the ADF as its branch in “Central Africa” and claimed some of its attacks.
