South Sudan and Uganda will jointly investigate recent deadly clashes on their border, the South Sudanese army said Sunday, after six people died in fighting.
Uganda has a history of involvement in impoverished South Sudan and has long provided military support to President Salva Kiir, including a deployment of special forces since March.
Last month, clashes erupted between the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and South Sudanese troops in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria state.
It was unclear what had triggered the violence, with both sides giving differing accounts, which killed five South Sudanese security force members and one Ugandan soldier.
South Sudanese army spokesperson Lul Ruai Koang said the Ugandan army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba had met his counterpart “on the need to immediately de-escalate the worsening security situation along the common border”.
A 14-strong committee with “equal representation from both armies” would be established to investigate the “exact causes” of the clashes in Central Equatoria, he said, in a statement posted on Facebook.
The son and heir apparent of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Kainerugaba arrived in South Sudan’s capital Juba on Saturday and also met with leader Kiir, according to a UPDF statement.
The two spoke on “focusing on strengthening bilateral relations and regional stability”, it said.
Uganda sent troops to support Kiir when civil war broke out in the country in 2013, just two years after it gained independence from Sudan.
The civil war between Kiir and his long-time rival, Riek Machar, lasted five years and left some 400,000 dead before a power-sharing agreement was reached in 2018.
Uganda again deployed special forces in March this year as Kiir moved once again against Machar, eventually placing him under house arrest.
That has all but buried the power-sharing deal and triggered conflict between the army and members of a militia from Machar’s ethnic Nuer community.
According to local media, the Ugandan army has used chemical weapons, namely barrel bombs containing a flammable liquid that killed civilians, against Nuer militias in South Sudan’s northeast.
Uganda has denied the accusations.
