Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has announced the deaths of 54 Ugandan soldiers in an al-Shabab attack on a base housing African Union peacekeepers in Somalia.
Museveni’s statement on Saturday comes a week after al-Shabab fighters stormed the base in Bulamarer, 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
The armed group claimed it carried out suicide bomb attacks on May 26 and killed 137 soldiers.
Museveni said on Saturday that the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) had since recaptured the base from the al-Qaeda-linked armed group, Aljazeera reported.
“Our soldiers demonstrated remarkable resilience and reorganized themselves, resulting in the recapture of the base by Tuesday,” the president said.
Museveni said last week that there had been Ugandan casualties but had not given further details about the attack on the troops, who are serving in the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
The al-Shabaab terrorist group is an armed group affiliated with the al-Qaeda terrorist network and has claimed responsibility for many terrorist operations that have killed hundreds of people in Africa.
The armed group repeatedly attacks government troops and peacekeeping forces of the African Union in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, and in other parts of the country and has carried out several brazen operations in other parts of Africa as well.