{UAH} MACHAR REBELS CAPTURED UPDF WEAPONS- UN

A confidential report to the UN Security Council has established that Uganda weapons procured from Israel have been extensively used in the brutal South Sudan conflict by the SPLA/M military protagonists Riek Machar and Salva Kiir.

Israel sold weapons stocks to Uganda in 2007 but evidence by the UN panel shows that these weapons, and others sent into South Sudan in 2014, have been responsible for fueling the South Sudan conflict that has raged on since Dec 2013.

The report cites a cartel of arms dealers involving Israel and Bulgarian firms that form well-established networks through which weapons procurement is coordinated from suppliers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and then transferred through middlemen in eastern Africa to South Sudan.

The Security Council has considered imposing an arms embargo on South Sudan although EU and US sanctions on arms sales and direct sanctions against top military officials from both SPLA-IO and SPLA/M have not eased tensions.

But the new revelations that Uganda automatic rifles found with Riek Machar rebels when they appeared in the jungles of DRC could point to a possibility that Kampala could have knowingly violated weapons export licenses or the weapons were captured from Salva Kiir soldiers that Mr. Yoweri Museveni supports.

Uganda will be investigated for possible involvement in arms trafficking using networks based in Eastern Europe that UN experts believe received  "extensive list of small arms, munitions and light weapons"

A Bulgarian firm, Bulgarian Industrial Engineering, working another company Bosasy Logistics headed by a Moldovan Valerii Copeichin, is said to have delivered 4,000 assault rifles and small ammunitions that were later transferred to South Sudan.

The weapons have caused displacement of over 2.5million people while over 1million others are either refugees in Uganda or UN and charity funded camps in South Sudan.

©Katonga Express

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