The Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) have deployed heavily on the common border between Uganda and Rwanda after a group of Rwandan Defense Forces operatives kidnapped a Ugandan soldier at Cyanika border in Kisoro District.
Ugandan security officials have since termed the move as an act of provocation.
Kisoro Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Capt Peter Mugisha who heads the District Security Committee told our reporter that Private Bakuru Muhuba, a UPDF soldier attached to 32nd Battalion Nyakabande is suspected to have been kidnapped by the Rwanda Forces on the evening of 12th June 2021 at 5:50 pm.
According to our sources in Kisoro, Muhuba was in the District on a daily routine patrol along Cyanika border in Cyanika Town Council, where he was left behind easing himself but never returned back which forced his fellow soldiers on duty to go back and search him but all in vein.
Its is now believed that Pte Muhuba fell in an ambush by Rwandan soldiers who had crossed to the Ugandan side and whisked him away to unknown place.
Capt Mugisha said that this prompted the District Security Committee to laise with UPDF top authorities to deploy along Chanika border as efforts by Kampala to contact its Kigali counterparts through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to produce Pte. Muhuba are still underway.
Rwandan soldiers have in the past been illegally crossing the international border into Uganda to abduct Ugandans living along the border and sometimes could demand for ransom or kill them.
Several Ugandans have lost their lives at the hands of the errant Rwandan soldiers with orders of shoot to kill Ugandans from Kigali ever since Rwanda closed the Katuna and Cyanika borders.
Most victims who have managed to come back to Uganda alive say if you cannot be anti-Uganda government in Kigali you risk being framed using trumped up charges like rape, defilement, drug abuse by the Rwandan security forces and the lucky ones are arrested and declared prohibited migrants and dumped at the borders while others are sent to jails without trial or killed.
Despite the hostile treatment of the Ugandans by the Rwandan establishment, Kampala has remained open to solving the impasse diplomatically which is in the offing after President Yoweri Museveni named Ambassador Adonia Ayebare to meet President Paul Kagame over the matter.
Do you have a story in your community or an opinion to share with us: Email us at editorial@watchdoguganda.com
