Ugandan and South Sudanese authorities have agreed to resolve their territorial dispute after fatalities from a skirmish between their two forces along their common border last Monday.
A border skirmish between South Sudan and Uganda in led to the death of at least three South Sudanese soldiers and a Ugandan trooper, APA learnt on Sunday.
The two countries’ common border straddling northwestern Uganda, has been the source of tension for many years, culminating in the latest armed clashes.
Witnesses say South Sudanese troops and Ugandan armed forces with a column of tanks and artillery units clashed in an area around South Sudan’s Equatoria State with reports suggesting that both sides suffered fatalities.
South Sudan army commander Henry Buri was quoted as saying that Ugandan forces targeted South Sudanese forces stationed in the disputed area which has not been demarcated.
The Ugandan military has not commented on the claim.
The exchange of fire between the two military allies is seen as an isolated incident as a joint border demarcation committee continue its work which will be completed by 2027 and hope that the outcome would be acceptable to the two countries.
Reports say South Sudanese soldiers had crossed the border into Uganda where they had camped and refused to leave, prompting Ugandan troops to challenge them. This could not be independently verified.
However, according to the spokesman of the Ugandan army Major General Felix Kulayigye, the skirmish was triggered by the killing of a Ugandan soldier after South Sudanese troops opened fire on his convoy last Monday,
Ugandan forces reportedly opened fire on the South Sudanese forces in an apparent retaliation for the killing.
Meanwhile Wani Jackson Mule, an official of Central Equatoria State said he had counted the bodies of five soldiers killed in the skirmish.
The fighting comes despite Ugandan troop presence in South Sudan at the behest of President Salva Kiir to help quell threats to his leadership amid a power struggle with former vice president Riek Machar last March.
Since the outbreak of the civil war in December 2013, Ugandan troops had helped restore normalcy in restive parts of South Sudan where armed clashes with armed militias opposed to President Kiir had taken place.
WN/as/APA