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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
DRC: Nine civilians "brutally murdered" in Nyanda, Ituri
KINSHASA, 6 August 2003 (IRIN) - Nine civilians were "brutally murdered" on Tuesday in Nyanda village, 20 km north of Bunia, the main town of the embattled Ituri District of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Mission in the DRC reported.
In Bunia, Leocadio Salmeron, the spokesman for the mission known as MONUC, told IRIN that the victims were primarily women and children. He said the attackers were militiamen of the Lendu people; who witnesses reported were armed with guns, machetes, spears and other weapons.
"The population identified the combatants as belonging to the Forces Nationalistes Integrationnistes (FNI) political-military movement, led by someone known as Engudolo," Salmeron said.
"The combatants came from the neighbouring villages of Loba and Babo, followed by civilians carrying sharpened weapons," he added.
"The [EU-led, UN-mandated] Artemis force sent a helicopter to the village, even though this was outside its mandate. The assailants fled when they saw the helicopter approaching," he said.
MONUC recalled that the attack followed similar ones in the villages of Fataki and Bule early last week, and others in Tchomia, Kasenyi, Drodro, Nizi and Largo in July. Witnesses said all attacks were carried out by FNI elements, MONUC reported.
Due to prevailing insecurity, the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, has been unable to deploy outside Bunia, while the EU-led mission sent to reinforce MONUC is not mandated to operate beyond the confines of the town.
However, the UN Security Council recently adopted a resolution arming MONUC with a stronger mandate and increasing its authorised strength from 8,700 to 10,800 troops. The council also extended the mission's mandate for another year, until 30 July 2004.
The attacks have persisted despite an agreement on 23 July among rival militias of Ituri to disarm, withdraw to rear bases and to participate in joint verification exercises. Representatives from five regional militias - the Union des patriotes congolais (UPC); the Forces armees du peuple congolais; the FNI; the Forces populaires pour la democratie au Congo; and the Parti pour l'unite et la sauvegarde de l'integrite du Congo - took part in the talks, organised in Bunia by MONUC.
President Joseph Kabila and his four vice-presidents sent a ministerial delegation to Bunia last week in an effort to calm tensions. Interior, foreign and defence ministers Theophile Mbemba Fundu, Antoine Ghonda Mangalibi and Jean-Pierre Ondekane of the newly-installed transitional government were to "carry a message of peace and reconciliation and to demonstrate the determination of the government to bring the peace process to every corner of the country", an official communique said.
Speaking in Bunia over the weekend to a public rally for peace, the ministers promised the leaders of Ituri's armed movements that they would have a role in the transitional government, and that this matter was under review in Kinshasa, the nation’s capital.
Ghonda said, "Justice must be restored and those responsible for killings would not go unpunished," while Ondekane called on the armed factions of Ituri to join the process of reunification of the country "or else be crushed".
For his part, Labu Mbuba, a leader from the Lendu community, said that the people of Ituri had been marginalised from the national peace process.
"The population has the feeling of having been abandoned a long time ago and left to its miserable fate by the Kinshasa government," he said. "We cannot feel a part of the peace agreements that have been signed as long as killings are allowed to continue in Ituri."
Ethnic strife in natural resource-rich Ituri between Hema and Lendu militias had prompted between 200,000 and 350,000 people to flee when fighting intensified in May, humanitarian sources reported.
None of the ethnic-based militias fighting for control of Ituri is signatory to the national power-sharing accord that led to the installation on 30 June of a new government led by Kabila.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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