The government of Uganda has repatriated 70 ex M23 combatants and 10 of their dependents back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ex rebels volunteered to return home five years after they were defeated.
On Tuesday morning, 70 ex rebels that belong to M23, a Congolese militia have been repatriated back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the foreign affairs ministry, the ex rebels were repatriated under a voluntary program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lK8-FNVkaY
Officials from Uganda’s foreign affairs ministry, United Nations, Congolese embassy to Uganda took part in today’s exercise of the repatriation of the ex rebels who were accompanied by some of their dependents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ1CbC1tQWQ
The M23 rebels once seized DR Congo’s eastern city of Goma, were later defeated and kicked out of DRC by a joint force from UN and Congolese army. Some ended up in a Ugandan-run camp.
A total of 316 rebels have been officially repatriated.
The March 23 Movement (French: Mouvement du 23 mars), often abbreviated as M23 and also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army (Armée révolutionnaire du Congo), was a rebel military group based in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), mainly operating in the province of North Kivu.
The 2012 M23 rebellion against the DRC government led to the displacement of large numbers of people. On 20 November 2012, M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of one million people, but was requested to evacuate it by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region because the DRC government had finally agreed to negotiate with them. In late 2013 Congolese troops, along with UN troops, retook control of Goma and M23 announced a ceasefire, saying it wanted to resume peace talks.
