Uganda, Congo boats clash on oil-rich lake

The Ugandan army exchanged fire with a Congolese boat on oil-rich Lake Albert and several people were killed and wounded in the clash, officials said Tuesday.

Accounts of Monday’s incident differed, with the U.N. saying six died and the Ugandan army putting the toll at one dead. The lake has long been a source of tension between Congo and Uganda.
Maj. Gabriel De Brosses, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo in Kinshasa, said U.N. teams observed two Congolese soldiers bring six dead ashore in a boat. The dead included three men, two women and a child.

De Brosses had no details on what the boat was doing or why Ugandan soldiers fired on it. He said U.N. officials were investigating.

Another U.N. peacekeeping spokesman, Michel Bonnardeaux, cited a Congolese officer as saying that a civilian boat carrying two armed soldiers and a group of civilians was stopped by a Ugandan military speedboat. The officer said the Ugandans ordered the Congolese soldiers aboard to hand over their automatic rifles but the Congolese refused. The officer said the Ugandans then opened fire, killing six people, Bonnardeaux said.

Calgary-based Heritage Oil Corp. (TSX:HOC), which is exploring for and developing oil deposits in Uganda, said that in an unrelated incident one of its seismic vessels was inspected in Ugandan waters in Lake Albert while it was lifting cables used for a seismic survey for oil and gas deposits.

Earlier this month, the presidents of Uganda and Congo signed an agreement aimed at easing tensions over the lake that called on the two nations to work together to explore and exploit oil and to lay a joint pipeline.

Canadian Press