Ugandan troops begin Ituri pullout

More peacekeepers from the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), known as MONUC, and security forces from Kinshasa arrived in the Ituri District of northeastern DRC on Thursday to maintain law and order as Ugandan troops began their planned retreat. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni gave the order on Thursday for his forces to withdraw from the troubled district. Thousands of people have been killed in Ituri in ethnic and other fighting over the past four years. UN aircraft landed at Bunia's tiny airstrip airport on Thursday, ferrying MONUC personnel and supplies to the town. Around 70 armed Congolese policemen from Kinshasa also arrived and drove to the centre of Bunia. The commander of the Ugandan troops in Ituri, Brig Kale Kayihura, told reporters at the airport that 1,500 of his men would leave on Thursday by plane. He said his men in Mongbwalu, northwest of Bunia, and Aru, almost on the Ugandan border, were walking to the border. "We are doing this according to our own schedule," he said. "Today we are handing over the towns, including Bunia, to the Uruguayan forces [of MONUC] but we are keeping control of the airports until the withdrawal is complete," he added. The MONUC commander in Kinshasa, Gen Mountaga Diallo, said there were around 6,000 to 7,000 Ugandan troops in Ituri, and it would be impossible to evacuate them all in one day. The Ugandan withdrawal is part of a deal presidents Joseph Kabila of the DRC and Yoweri Museveni signed on 6 September 2002 in Luanda, Angola. MONUC is to deploy 2,500 of its peacekeepers to Ituri before June. A first contingent of 200 Uruguayans arrived in Bunia on Wednesday.