KIKUUBE, UGANDA: Security officials in the Albertine region have released and deported 35 Congolese fishermen who were arrested on the Lake Albert waters in Kikuube District on Monday.
The Congolese fishermen were arrested on August 1, 2022, while carrying out fishing activities in the Ugandan waters near Sebigoro landing site.
They have been being detained at the Sebigoro landing site police post on charges of illegal entry into Ugandan and using illegal fishing gear.
Police say the fishermen crossed into the Ugandan waters with nine illegal boats and fishing nets that were also impounded and destroyed by the UPDF fisheries protection unit.
Maj Richard Mafabi, the sector commander overseeing the FPU operations on Lake said that the FPU personnel while conducting normal operations spotted the Congolese fishermen carrying out fishing activities near Sebigoro landing site and swung in action and arrested them.
“They illegally entered our territorial waters and our unit can’t accept such. We arrested them and we liaised with our Congolese counterparts and agreed that they be deported,” he said, adding that they were from the landing sites of Kasenyi and Tchomia in the Ituri province in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr Amlan Tumusiime, the Kikuube Resident District Commissioner said that currently, security is heightened along the Uganda-DRC border to ensure that no any Congolese fishermen cross into the country to conduct fishing.
In April 2021, two suspected Congolese militiamen were gunned down in a fire exchange with UPDF soldiers on the Lake Albert waters near Kaiso landing site in Hoima. The duo Opio Ozelle and Singa Kowe were found robbing Ugandan fishermen. Five others were also arrested by the UPDF.
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