Women carry their belongings outside Kaabong town in Karamoja region, Uganda February 17, 2016. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

KAMPALA, March 30 (Reuters) – Uganda’s army has killed 309 people during an eight-month operation against cattle rustling in a northeast region rich in minerals, including gold, limestone and potentially oil, the armed forces said.

The Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF), the East African country’s military, said the deaths were the result of a campaign to quell violence by cattle rustlers in the Karamoja region since July last.

“The UPDF, together with other sister security agencies (…) will continue to work together to completely pacify Karamoja and end all criminality in the sub-region,” he said in a press release on Tuesday evening.

He called those killed “warriors”, without giving further details.

Inhabited by nomadic herders, Karamoja has long suffered from banditry, cattle raids and inter-clan wars fueled by cheap and readily available weapons.

Rivalry and competition for pasture and water points for animals as well as raids for livestock have traditionally fomented violence between different Karamajong communities and against pastoralist communities across the border in Kenya.

In a tweet on Wednesday, President Yoweri Museveni’s son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a UPDF ground forces commander, said they probably killed more people than the number the UPDF said in the statement.

“We have killed many more cattle rustlers since last year. And we will continue to kill them until they completely lose their appetite for this industry,” Kainerugaba said in a tweet, in which he responded. to a local newspaper article about the 309 deaths. .

The UPDF said it also recovered 184 firearms in the operation and arrested 1,700 people.

In 2020, Uganda began conducting a mining survey and mapping exercise in Karamoja, believed to hold significant reserves of gold, copper, limestone, petroleum and other minerals.

A recent increase in violence in the area has posed threats to the exercise, however, including the killing of a team this month that included a veteran geologist, a student intern, an interpreter and two soldiers.

Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by George Obulutsa, William Maclean

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