UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
May 27, 2003
Posted to the web May 27, 2003
Nairobi
Fighting erupted again on Tuesday in Bunia, the principal city of the embattled Ituri District of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, reported.
MONUC said it could not confirm the figures of six dead and five injured reported by the Union des patriotes congolais (UPC), the ethnic Hema militia currently in control of central Bunia. However, MONUC reported that mortar fire on Monday had killed one and injured five members of the Front de resistance patriotique de l'Ituri, an ethnic Lendu militia trying to dislodge the UPC from the city.
"The situation in Ituri remains extremely volatile. Without the arrival of a Chapter Seven force, the humanitarian community will not be able to continue programme implementation," one Bunia resident predicted. "An outbreak of fighting in Bunia within the next 24 hours cannot be excluded. Factions hostile to the UPC will most certainly seek a military solution on the ground, thereby completely ignoring MONUC as mediator. It would appear that the coming 48 hours could be decisive."
Chapter Seven of the UN Charter authorises the UN to use military force in response to "any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression". However, member states contributing soldiers to UN peace missions are often reluctant to commit their troops to such a level of activity. [For more information on Chapter Seven, go to http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm]
A consortium of European NGOs on Tuesday echoed the call for a move to Chapter Seven. In a statement issued by the Reseau Europeen Congo and the Great Lakes Advocacy Network from Brussels, the relief and development organisations called for the rapid deployment of a UN international intervention force in Ituri.
"Relying on the deployment or effective implementation of the transitional government in the DRC or on the intervention of Uganda and Rwanda is the equivalent of allowing the chaos to continue, with more massacres of civilians in Ituri," the statement said. "MONUC, the UN, and the member nations of the UN Security Council risk finding their credibility even further diminished."
This most recent round of armed hostilities followed the weekend theft and destruction of some 300,000 doses of various vaccines, financed by the UN Children's Fund, which had been housed in the Bunia General Hospital, MONUC reported. The warehouse of the UN World Health Organisation was also pillaged, according to MONUC, with medical equipment and vaccine refrigerators stolen.
Also on Tuesday, a MONUC human rights verification team reported that 70 houses in the Simbilyabo section of Bunia had been burned to the ground, while the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that some 50,000 civilians fleeing Bunia had arrived in the area of Eringeti, located some 35 km north of Beni.
