A Ugandan soldier shot and murdered three of his fellow troops when they were deployed in Mogadishu, Somalia, as part of an African Union peacekeeping operation.
Brig. Gen. Felix Kulayigye, spokesman for the Uganda People’s Defense Forces, claimed the soldier awoke on Monday and “sprayed bullets” at his coworkers. All four were a part of the military manning the capital of Somalia’s international airport.
“We wonder if he was stressed or had a mental problem and we didn’t know,” Kulayigye said, adding that Uganda’s army has set up a board of inquiry to find the cause of the shooting.
He stated that the soldier had been detained and will be sent by air to Uganda to stand trial.
Since 2007, Uganda has sent troops to Somalia to fight the insurgents there who want to topple the Mogadishu government. With the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, there are additional troops from Kenya, Burundi, Djibouti, and Ethiopia.
In May 2019, a Ugandan soldier engaged in a similar shooting in Somalia, killing his superior commander before turning the gun on himself.
Following an increase in incidents of soldiers shooting civilians in public, Uganda’s main psychiatric hospital developed a facility to assist soldiers, particularly those who served in Somalia, in overcoming trauma.