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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: UN troops kill militia commander, arrest nine

NAIROBI, 10 November 2003 (IRIN) - A commander of the Parti pour l'Unite, la Solidarite et l'Integrite du Congo (PUSIC) was shot dead and nine militiamen arrested when the group opened fire on a UN military patrol on Saturday in the embattled Ituri District, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, an official told IRIN.

A spokesman for the UN Mission in the Congo, Leocadio Salmeron, said another militiaman was wounded during the shooting that occurred in Shari, 8 km northwest of the town of Bunia, which is considered a PUSIC stronghold. He named the dead PUSIC commander as "Col" Claude Aboli.

The UN mission, known as MONUC, will hold the arrested militiamen for two or three days before handing them over to the local authorities, he added. No UN soldier was wounded in the shooting.

Sporadic militia fighting continues across Ituri, despite the deployment of MONUC troops outside Bunia, the main town in the district.

Salmeron said the first phase of deployment outside Bunia was complete, and that UN troops were now stationed in towns such as Bogoro, 28 km east of Bunia; Maragu, to the southwest of Bunia; Igabarriere and Bule, to the northwest of Bunia. He said the second deployment phase would begin between November and December.

A total of 4,500 MONUC troops are in Ituri, he said, without giving the number of soldiers deployed in each town.

Meanwhile, the government-owned Ugandan daily, The New Vision, reported on Monday that the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) had reoccupied the Ruwenzori Mountains, on the border with the Congo, to stem any rebel attack from the Congo.

It quoted UPDF spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza as saying that the move was a precautionary measure against pockets of Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF) and People's Redemption Army (PRA) rebels, who were reportedly trying to regroup in eastern Congo.

Bantariza said there were small pockets of PRA in North Kivu Province in eastern Congo and ADF rebel remnants on the western shore region of Lake Albert and in Ituri, northeastern Congo.

The New Vision reported that the UPDF was securing the bases it used in the 1996-2001 fight against the ADF who attacked Uganda from the Congo on 13 November 1996.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict

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