Ugandan authorities on Monday said they had returned dozens of former militants of a Democratic Republic of Congo rebel group to a military camp after they tried to sneak out of the country in disguise last week.
The former fighters, who have been staying in camps in the East African country after years of fighting in chaotic eastern Congo, were picked up in Western Uganda.
Congo has welcomed the recapture of the former combatants.
The M23 rebels, who once controlled swathes of territory in eastern Congo, fled to Uganda after a combined United Nations and Congolese force crushed their rebellion in 2013.
Arthur Timbaganya, a Ugandan regional military spokesman, said about 30 of the 100 or so people detained had turned out to be civilian Congolese refugees who had been staying in various camps. They were handed over to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, while “all the ex-combatants were returned to Bihanga (military camp),” he said.
The military has also increased its surveillance of the Bunagana area in southwestern Uganda, a border entry point with Congo, to try to prevent any more attempts by former M23 rebels to re-enter Congo, Timbaganya said.
