Two Ugandan Army Helicopters Crash in Uganda, Eastern Congo, Killing 24 Soldiers - Report

A pair of Ugandan military helicopters crashed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda this week while engaged in counter-terrorism operations with the Congolese military.

A Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday about one crash, which occurred in the Boga region of Congo’s northeastern Ituri Province, on the border with Uganda. However, he said officials were “still waiting” on information about the number of killed and wounded.

A Congolese source later told Xinhua News Agency that 22 soldiers had died in the crash, including three Congolese soldiers. The helicopter, a Russian-made Mil Mi-17 transport, was assigned to Operation Shujaa, a counterterrorism mission in the DRC, and had just dropped off a food consignment to troops, according to the Ugandan Monitor. The chopper reportedly struck a cluster of electrical power lines and plummeted from the sky on top of the soldiers collecting the food cargo.

According to the Monitor, the pilot was Yury Vyshykvy, a Ukrainian national who was teaching a Ugandan captain. The UPDF has long cooperated with Ukrainian aerospace companies, as well as other former Soviet republics and allies, in repairing and maintaining its aging air fleet. Kampala also has good relations with both Russia and the United States and has remained neutral on the question of the Ukrainian conflict, abstaining from United Nations votes and calling for a negotiated peace settlement.

However, a second Ugandan helicopter also crashed, although it was unclear from reports if the crash happened on Saturday or Tuesday. A Ugandan and a Congolese soldier were both killed in an accident at Fort Portal in the Kabarole border area in western Uganda. According to the Ugandan Monitor, the chopper was a Russian-built Mil Mi-24 attack chopper. A preliminary judgment by UPDF officials suggested faulty wiring might have been the cause of the cash, which occurred just moments after takeoff.

The second helicopter was also engaged in Operation Shujaa, a joint Uganda-DRC campaign against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Daesh*-aligned group in the eastern Congo that aims to overthrow the Ugandan government. It has killed around 6,000 people since 2013, according to Congolese authorities.

The ADF is just one of several rebel groups active in the region, which is why a United Nations peacekeeping mission has deployed some 14,000 troops there - although they, too, have been part of the violence.

*A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.