The Ugandan military has recovered some 1,000 head of cattle seized by ethnic Jie warriors over the weekend in the northeastern part of the country, an army spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Capt. Henry Obbo, the third division spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone that the army recovered all the cattle taken by the armed Jie rustlers in their raid on Saturday from the neighboring Kaabong district.
"We have recovered all the cows that Jie warriors from Kotido rustled from Kaabong district. We used our military helicopter for tracking the warriors in the wilderness," said Obbo.
"When the warriors saw our military gunship, they took off and abandoned all the cows," he said.
The Jie, a local ethnic tribe in Kotido, sneaked into several kraals in Kaabong district and raided 1,000 cattle belonging to the ethnic Matheniko, according to the army.
The local leaders, according to Daily Monitor published on Tuesday, put the number at 6,000, a figure the military refutes.
"There is no way the warriors can raid 6,000 cattle in the region. I don't know why the local leaders want to exaggerate the number of raided
cattle," said Obbo.
The drought prone region has been destabilized by rampant inter- clan cattle raids for years, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
The cattle raids have, however, reduced in the last two years as a result of the army's disarmament exercise and intervention in the region.
"The rate of cattle raids in the region has significantly reduced. This is because of the increased presence of the army," said Obbo.
The army has recovered over 27,000 out of an estimated 40,000 illegal guns in the region since 2001.