Uganda said it is holding Sultani Makenga, 39-year-old chief from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s movement alongside some of the members of the group.
The spokesman for Uganda’s Western Region command, Captain Ronal Kakurungu told reporters that those being held together with the rebel chief would remain at an undisclosed location until a peace agreement between the government and the M23 has been signed.
“He surrendered to us yesterday and we’re holding him somewhere and some other commanders of his, we have roughly about 1,500 M23 combatants who surrendered to us. We have disarmed all of them and we’re in the process of documenting and categorizing all their weapons,” captain Kakurungu said.
The Congolese government declined to make any immediate comment about the announcement of the surrender.
Sultani Makenga whereabouts was unknown since Tuesday’s announcement by the M23 rebel group that it was ending its 20-month insurgency in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Makenga is on both UN and US sanctions lists after being accused of participating in several massacres, mutilations, abductions and sexual violence, including on children.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay said the M23 members including the rebel chief are considered to be “among the worst perpetrators of human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo’’.
“Many of them may have been responsible for war crimes,” Pillay said in June last year, appealing for them to face justice.
Sultani Makenga was the military chief of the fearful March 23 Movement, a rebel military group based in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In May 2013, the M23 rebels clashed with FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and there were rumors that Makenga got badly wounded and mighty have died but he later appeared in public rebut the rumors.
Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News
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