Some 54 Ugandan peacekeepers died when militants besieged an African Union base in Somalia last week, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni said, in one of the worst recent attacks by Al-Shabaab jihadists in the war-torn country.
"We discovered the lifeless bodies of 54 fallen soldiers, including a commander," Museveni said in a Twitter post on Saturday.
The veteran leader was speaking during a meeting with members of his governing National Resistance Movement party, the presidency told AFP yesterday.
The toll is one of the heaviest yet since pro-government forces backed by the AU force known as ATMIS launched an offensive against Al-Shabaab last August.
It was also a rare admission of a major military death toll by African Union members.
Al-Shabaab, which has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia's fragile central government for more than a decade, claimed responsibility for the May 26 attack, saying it had overrun the base and killed 137 soldiers.
Al-Shabaab is known to exaggerate claims of battlefield gains for propaganda purposes, and the governments of nations contributing troops to the AU force rarely confirm casualties.
The militants drove a car laden with explosives into the base in Bulo Marer, 120 kilometres southwest of the capital Mogadishu, leading to a gunfight, local residents and a Somali military commander told AFP.
Museveni had already said last week that "some of the soldiers there did not perform as expected and panicked" as some 800 assailants attacked.
That forced a withdrawal to a nearby base some nine kilometres away, he said, deploring "a missed opportunity to annihilate" the Qaeda-linked insurgents.
"The mistake was made by two commanders, Maj. Oluka and Maj. Obbo, who ordered the soldiers to retreat," Museveni said on Saturday, adding that they would face charges in a court martial.
