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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: Rebel UPC takes control of Bunia

KINSHASA, 12 May 2003 (IRIN) - The rebel group, Union des patriotes congolais (UPC) took control of Bunia on Monday after six days of fighting between rival ethnic militias, MONUC, the UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC), told IRIN.

"The UPC is patrolling the town together with some soldiers from the PUSIC de Kawa [an allied rebel group led by Kawa Mandro Panga]", Patricia Tome, director of information for MONUC, told IRIN. She said apart from sporadic shooting, calm had returned to the town after a two hour battle which began at 06:00 local time.

The UPC, led by Thomas Lubanga, a Hema, formerly controlled Bunia, which is the principal town of Ituri district in northeastern DRC. Lubanga's fighters were chased out by Ugandan troops on 6 March. Fighting between rival Hema and Lendu militias intensified after the Ugandans completed their withdrawal from Bunia on 7 May following an agreeement with the government in Kinshasa.

Local sources told IRIN that thousands of people who sought refuge at the MONUC base on Sunday night to escape the fighting were returning to their homes. However, news reports said that ethnic Lendus were leaving Bunia.

Lubanga told IRIN that Lendu militamen had been practising extortion and that militias had been "sowing terror in the town".

"Our soldiers have not only taken control of the town; they are moving towards the various camps and supply centres of the militias which have been sowing desolation and terror in the town", he said.

Lubanga blamed the Kinshasa government for the violence, claiming that through an alliance with the former rebel group, Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Kisangani-Movement de liberation(RCD-K-ML), the government was arming and giving uniforms to Lendu militiamen.

According to MONUC some 30 people have been killed in the fighting in the past week, including children and several priests.

Aine Joyce, information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that some 30 international aid workers remained in Bunia to assess urgent needs. The rest were evacuated on Saturday.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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