The Police have recovered a boat that was being used by four Marine officers who were attacked by unknown militia men on Lake Albert in Ntoroko district last week.
Unknown assailants attacked four marine officers from Kanara detach while on patrol on lake Albert at around 10 PM on November 8, 2022,
The following day, officers at the detach received a tip-off from the UPDF Intelligence Officer in Kagadi district indicating that their four colleagues had suffered an attack from the suspected militiamen from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to Vincent Twesige the Rwenzori West Police Spokesperson, the affected marine officers are Sam Namunyu, who was leading the patrol, Micheal Mulyamoli, Davis Asiimwe, and Alfred Watumu.
Twesige says that upon receiving the information, officers from Ntoroko commenced a search and rescue operation and they were able to rescue Watumu and Asiimwe. He says that the militiamen had shot Asiimwe in the right arm.
However, Mulyamoli and Watumu were nowhere to be found together with the marine boat and four riffles. Now, Justus Tashobya, the Ntoroko District Police commander, says that they conducted a search on the Congolese side of Lake Albert with permission from the DRC authorities where they found the missing police boat.
He says that they found that boat that was damaged by gunshots from Kasenyi in the Ituri Province of DR Congo. Col. Filo Isimba, the governor of Ituri province later handed over the boat officially to the Uganda Police Force.
Tashobya, however, says that the two marine police officers and their firearms are still missing, and a search is still ongoing to find them. In May 2016, Congolese soldiers attacked marine officers from the same detachment killing two officers and injuring two others.