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| East/Subsaharan Africa | |
| Congo Residents Identify 112 Dead | |
| 2003-05-13 | |
| Rebels consolidated their grip on a troubled northeastern Congolese town Tuesday as residents identified at least 112 dead after a week of fighting. As calm returned after nearly a week of bloodshed, residents left their homes and began counting civilians killed in the fighting, said Christian Lukusha, representative of Justice Plus, a local human rights group. The fighters captured Bunia on Monday after launching a dawn raid on the town with rockets and mortars, said Patricia Tome, spokeswoman of the U.N. mission in Congo. The rival Hema and Lendu fighters have battled for control of Bunia since Wednesday, killing dozens of people, displacing thousands of residents and looting shops and houses. The Union of Congolese Patriots, led by members of the Hema community, captured Bunia after launching a dawn raid using rockets, mortars and other heavy weapons. The town had been in the hands of Lendu tribal fighters, rivals of the minority Hema. Aid workers, who left after offices, homes and warehouses were looted, trickled back on Tuesday to help residents who spent several days sheltering at three U.N. premises without access to clean water and sanitary facilities, said Tome. "The solution is for the new authorities to guarantee security of civilians to encourage them to go back to their homes," said Roy Mahesh, an official with Oxfam, a British aid group. The fighting begun May 7 after neighboring Uganda completed the withdrawal of its more than 6,000 soldiers from in an around Bunia. Ugandans left the town in the hands of Lendu tribal fighters, a small contingent of U.N. troops from Uruguay and an even smaller Congolese police force. There are 625 U.N. troops in Bunia, while there are between 25,000 and 28,000 tribal fighters in the region, with thousands of them deployed in and around Bunia.
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| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #4 This stopped me dead - News agencies quoted UN diplomats as saying that the UN was seeking a "coalition of the willing" to make up a rapid reaction force and that France could take a leading role. http://allafrica.com/stories/200305130253.html Is it possible the message is getting through to the UN? Or is this just a desperate attempt to do something that slows the UNs drift to irrelevance? |
| Posted by: Phil_B 2003-05-14 00:24:43 |
| #3 Congo's ambassador to South Africa, Bene M'Poko, said the UN troops were proving to be "useless". http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2003/05/11/news/news02.asp Read a great report the other day about how the UN troops kept getting conflicting orders from the UN. Unfortunately I can't find it on google. |
| Posted by: Phil_B 2003-05-14 00:04:18 |
| #2 I feel so much better now. They're sending the French. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-13 11:54:23 |
| #1 Like I blogged yesterday, give me 600 United States Marines and we'll see if the killing and looting stops. Kill 'em all and let God sort them out is perhaps the best tactic in this case. The U.N. is useless here. Thank you, Belgium, once again, for your fine leadership during the colonial era. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-13 11:20:59 |