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| Africa Subsaharan |
| U.N. Force Fires on Ugandan Rebels in DR Congo after Deadly Attack |
| 2013-12-26 |
| [An Nahar] Helicopters of a special U.N. force in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... Wednesday fired on Ugandan rebels to help government troops retake the town of Kamango after an attack that killed civilians. "South African helicopters in the U.N. intervention force were asked by FARDC (the DR Congo army) to give them support to recapture Kamango," said a senior officer with the U.N. mission to DR Congo (MONUSCO) who declined to be identified by name. "We have already taken back Kamango," said Lieutenant-Colonel Olivier Amuli, a FARDC army front man in North-Kivu province, the mineral-rich but volatile region plagued by a number of gangs. Amuli admitted that at the time of the attack on Kamango the Congolese forces "withdrew because they were outnumbered." Teddy Kataliko, head of the civil society in the Beni region where Kamango is located, as well as the MONUSCO officer, could not confirm to Agence La Belle France Presse the retaking of the town. The civil organization blamed the initial attack on the Islamist Ugandan rebel group ADF-Nalu in collaboration with Uganda's army. It is one of the oldest but least known gangs based in eastern DR Congo. "We have 10 people kidnapped, 11 civilians and five soldiers maimed, and several civilian killed, as well as homes burned, by the attackers," Kataliko earlier told AFP. He also said the attackers were "now heading towards the town of Nobili," on the Congolese-Ugandan border, where more than 150,000 people have taken refuge from the fighting. "We believe there is the risk of a massacre and that's why we are asking to establish a humanitarian corridor," he said, making an appeal to the government to come to the aid of those people. ADF-Nalu stands for Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda and is considered the only Islamist organization in the region. |
| Posted by:Fred |