U.N. beefs up forces in eastern Congo after battle
By Dino Mahtani
KINSHASA (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers in volatile northeast Congo have stepped up patrols and asked for reinforcements after a fierce firefight with militia fighters this week, a spokesman said Friday.
"There was gunfire again Thursday night, so we have even decided to increase the number of troops available on the ground," U.N. spokesman Leocadio Salmeron told Reuters by telephone from the northeastern town of Bunia.
Some 4,500 U.N. troops have deployed in Bunia and the surrounding Ituri region since September to halt ethnic clashes between rival Hema and Lendu militias and protect civilians in Africa's third largest country.
They have sometimes faced resistance, and Wednesday's five-hour gunbattle in Bunia was one of the most serious incidents, highlighting the challenges in bringing peace to a nation the size of Western Europe. One peacekeeper was wounded.
Despite an April peace deal to end the five-year civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, fighting still flares in the lawless east. About three million people died during the war, mostly from hunger and disease.
The conflict in the Ituri region has claimed more than 50,000 lives since 1999.
Salmeron said Moroccan peacekeepers had been called in as reinforcements to Bunia, but he was unable to say how many would arrive. The troops in Ituri so far include Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Nepalese and Indonesian forces.
In a further example of Ituri's volatility, four U.N. military observers were ambushed Thursday by some 15 armed militiamen near the town of Rutshuru, some 300 km (188 miles) southwest of Bunia.
"They were ambushed by heavily armed men who took everything: phones, clothes, satellite equipment, flak jackets, the works," U.N. spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard said.
"There are some indications the assailants were Interahamwe," she said, referring to Rwandan Hutu rebels still based in Congo after they fled their own country following their involvement in the 1994 genocide.
11/07/03 10:27 ET
