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Mon Mar 7, 6:27 AM ET |
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By David Lewis
BUNIA, Congo (Reuters) - Fighting between militias and attacks on civilians in eastern Congo have displaced 100,000 people since late last year, causing a humanitarian catastrophe and dashing hopes for peace, a U.N. aid official said Monday.
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"The humanitarian situation has become catastrophic since the outbreak of fighting in December," Modibo Traore, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Ituri, told Reuters.
"We are now looking at about 100,000 displaced in all, including about 70,000 that are in the camps," he said in Bunia, the capital of Ituri. U.N. peacekeepers are protecting thousands of refugees in several camps in the region.
Traore also said operations this month against militia by U.N. troops following the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers would make matters worse, as gunmen would mete out revenge on long-suffering civilians.
Fighting between ethnic-based militia in the mineral-rich, lawless Ituri district has killed more than 50,000 people since 1999. The latest wave of clashes started in December between Hema and Lendu militia in the Djugu territory.
The explosion of violence in Ituri has damaged efforts by the former Belgian colony to recover from a wider 1998-2003 war that at one point sucked in six countries.
The militias have razed villages, butchered several hundred people, kidnapped civilians and raped scores of women.
Ituri's ethnic conflicts are rooted in commercial and land rivalries in a region rich in diamonds, gold and timber. Last year, fighting died down somewhat although militias continued to tax civilians and control border trade.
Traore said more than 20,000 civilians, who fled their homes several years ago and had begun to return last year, had now gone back into the bush after the latest attacks.
"In the camps, up to 10 people are dying a day. But in the bush, they are much more exposed, so it is likely that there will be many more and we don't know where they are," he said.
Traore also warned that last week's killing of 50 militia fighters by U.N. forces would complicate aid work.
Criticized in the past for being ineffective in reining in marauding militias, the U.N. force has said it will step up operations to dismantle militia training camps.
"In the context it seemed to many like a revenge attack. After the U.N. operation, our (humanitarian) operations will be much more complicated," Traore said.
"The militias will be angry as they will have lost credibility in the eyes of their people. Knowing them, having been attacked, they will hit back and pillage people like they always do," he said.
Fighting in Ituri peaked in 2003 when militia fought over Bunia, killing thousands in an attack that shocked international opinion and led to the deployment of French soldiers.
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