55 killed in fighting with militia

KAMPALA, Uganda — More than four dozen people have been killed in fighting between Ugandan forces and a tribal militia in a remote district near the border with Congo, officials said Sunday as security forces battled armed men protecting a tribal king who is accused of leading the rebels.

At least 55 people, including 41 rebels and 14 police officers, have been killed in clashes in Uganda’s Rwenzori region, said police spokesman Felix Kaweesi. Four police officers and four soldiers have been wounded.

The killings are an escalation of a long-running conflict between Uganda and rebels who are believed to be loyal to a tribal king, Charles Wesley Mumbere, a critic of the country’s president.

Gunfire rang out outside the king’s palace in the western district of Kasese on Sunday as Ugandan troops tried to disarm Mumbere’s guards and arrest him. Ugandan security forces overwhelmed the guards, broke into the palace and transferred Mumbere to a police post for questioning.

Capt. Arthur Timbaganya, a spokesman for Ugandan troops in the area, said Mumbere was not under arrest but had been “rescued” from the palace for his own safety. Timbaganya’s account was disputed by the police, who said the king was now in detention.

Mumbere is king of Uganda’s Bakonzo people, and some of his supporters have been calling for secession from Uganda, according to government spokesman Col. Shaban Bantariza.

Mumbere has denied any role in the attacks on police posts.

Kasese, where Mumbere is based and part of the mountainous Rwenzori region, is about 210 miles west of the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The area is a hotbed of opposition to President Yoweri Museveni, who lost there in the last presidential polls.

Some of the rebels had climbed high up the Rwenzori mountains and set up military camps from which they were said to run a small government, even collecting taxes from the people they control. The rebels are armed with modern weapons and improvised explosive devices, according to Bantariza.