/ 15 July 2001

NAMIBIA?S TROOPS IN DRC HEAD FOR HOME

NAMIBIA will withdraw all its troops from the DRC by the end of August, South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Thursday. Lekota, speaking to SABC radio from Windhoek, said Namibian Defence Minister Errki Nghimtina had told him his country’s troops “will be totally out of the DRC by the end of next month”. That will end a costly three-year campaign which was unpopular at home. Namibia has never given troop figures, but analysts say some 2 000 Namibian soldiers are in the DRC, where they have been fighting since 1998 alongside government forces and troops from Angola and Zimbabwe against rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda. – AFP