U.N. troops arrest militiamen in eastern Congo
By Dino Mahtani
KINSHASA, Nov 8 (Reuters) - U.N. troops in the northestern Congolese town of Bunia arrested 16 armed militiamen in house-to-house raids on Saturday, officials said.
The U.N. took over in Bunia from a French-led European force in September with the aim of continuing the pacification of the town, as well as deploying into the surrounding Ituri province.
But the upsurge in violence in the town risks slowing deployments into the countryside where killings continue unchecked and highlights the challenges facing the force as it seeks to enforce peace in the vast central African nation.
U.N. officials said peacekeepers found 11 armed men after a bout of shooting and five more later, all from the ethnic Hema militia group the UPC (Union of Congolese Patriots).
"We had stepped up routine searches when this morning one of our units entered a house to find 11 men in uniform, all armed with AK-47s," said U.N. spokesman Leocadio Salmeron.
He said all 16 militiamen, including a senior UPC member called Rafiki Saba, were being questioned.
U.N. troops, now numbering some 4,500 in Ituri, banned weapons in Bunia several weeks ago after an upsurge in gunfights within the town. But the peacekeepers fought a five-hour gun battle on with militia fighters on Wednesday.
Several raids on ethnic militia hideouts have been carried out and weapons confiscated. But despite promises by militia groups to hand over lists of the location and numbers of their troops, only partial information has been received.
The UPC has also stopped sending its representatives to weekly meetings in Bunia organised by the U.N. mission in Congo.
"Everything that is rubbish is blamed on the UPC. Certain members of the U.N. who are not working for peace have their own agenda for sabotaging us," Victor Ngona, Secretary General for the UPC, told Reuters from Bunia.
Over 50,000 lives have been lost in Ituri since 1999 as rival Hema and Lendu ethnic groups have vied for control of the province's reserves of gold, diamonds and coltan, a mineral used in mobile phones and other technological gadgets.
11/08/03 14:38 ET
