By Charles Ariko

TWENTY-THREE more Ugandan soldiers serving on the African Union mission in Somalia have been evacuated to Nairobi for treatment after they got infected by a waterborne disease that hit the peacekeepers’ camp in Mogadishu last week.

This brings to 40 the number of Ugandans airlifted to Kenya following the outbreak of the disease that has so far killed one UPDF soldier and four Burundians.

According to the Army spokesman, Lt. Col Felix Kulayigye, the 23 soldiers were evacuated on Friday morning to a hospital in Nairobi. However, he said, 11 of the earlier group had been discharged and flown back to Mogadishu.

Kulayigye said the World Health Organisation was working together with senior UPDF doctor Lt. Col. Sam Kasule, who was dispatched from Kampala to beef up the medical team.

Medical experts are still trying to identify the type of disease, said Kulayigye, adding that the army was now concentrating its efforts on stopping the spread of the disease.

“Diagnosis is still problematic. We have now embarked on checking and prevention to mitigate the impact of the epidemic.”

The UPDF dismissed earlier fears that the soldiers could have been poisoned by Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgents fighting the Somali government and the peace-keepers.

“This has nothing to do with poisoning. Cases of poisoning do not present themselves in such a way,” said Dr. James Makumbi, the UPDF’s Chief of Medical Services, on Saturday.

The symptoms include chest pain, fever, headache, swelling of the lower limbs, a fast heart beat and respiratory problems.

Makumbi said the epidemic could have been caused by the terrain, which is flat and swampy, coupled with poor sewerage disposal.

Matters were worsened by Mogadishu being a war-torn coastal city where many displaced people are concentrated in a small area.

“Owing to the fact that the water table is close, even underground water sources became contaminated with fecal matter,” he said.

Over 50 Burundians have also been affected. By last week, four had died.

Uganda and Burundi are the only countries that have heeded the call from the African Union to send peacekeepers to Somalia. But the 4,300 force, among them some 2,700 Ugandans, falls short of the 8,000 soldiers needed to secure Mogadishu.