Uganda on Tuesday released 13 more Rwandans charged with spying, following last week’s high-level meeting between officials of the two countries in Kigali.
They were imprisoned in Uganda for more than one year after they were arrested from different places, before being taken away and tortured according to officials in Kigali.
During a meeting which took place in Kigali last Friday, Rwanda and Uganda agreed to swap prisoners at the opening of the third round of ministerial talks to normalise relations.
The talks build on a memorandum of understanding that was signed in Angola in August last year to end the dispute after both countries accused each other of spying, political assassinations and meddling.
The tensions had also prompted Rwanda to close the border with its northern neighbour.
Rwandan also accuses Uganda of offering succour to two foreign-based rebel groups – Rwanda National Congress (RNC) and Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The RNC is a rebel group led by some of Rwanda’s most prominent dissidents including South Africa-based renegade officer Kayumba Nyamwasa.
The FDLR is a rebel group composed in part of former Rwandan soldiers and Hutu militias who fled into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after the massacre of more than one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
There are more than 100 Rwandans incarcerated in Uganda, according to officials in Kigali.
CU/as/APA