SADC forces complete withdrawal from Equateur province

The forces of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which were allied with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo have completed their withdrawal from Equateur province in western DRC, and closed their northern headquarters in Mbandaka. The closure of the Mbandaka headquarters means there are no longer any soldiers from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe left in the province, Major Alphonse Makatore, SADC forces spokesman, told IRIN. According to an SADC statement, the pullout is in accordance with Lusaka peace accord of 1999. Both Makatore and the DRC minister delegate for defence, Irung Awan, declined to give exact figures for the number of SADC soldiers in the DRC during the four-year war. "There were reasonable numbers of allied soldiers in Mbandaka," Awan told IRIN. According to the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), 1,595 Zimbabwean troops (ZDF), 1,755 Ugandan troops (UPDF) and 1,435 Rwandan soldiers have withdrawn from the DRC over the past three weeks. Namibia has withdrawn all its troops, while Angola has maintained a "symbolic" or small number, Awan told IRIN. Zimbabwe is in the process of withdrawing less than 3,000 troops, government sources told IRIN. Zimbabwe deployed troops in the DRC in 1998 to support the government of the late Laurent-Desire Kabila, and subsequently his son Joseph. Since 2 August 1998, Uganda and Rwanda have been involved in armed opposition to the Kinshasa government. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia backed Kabila.