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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 13 March 2006

DRC: Soldiers kill 13 militiamen in Ituri

BUNIA, 13 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Congolese soldiers have killed 13 militiamen and captured two others following a clash in the embattled northeastern district of Ituri, Orientale Province, Governor Lola Kisanga said.

He said "many" of the solders were wounded during the fighting on Friday in Bogoro, 25 km south of Ituri's main town of Bunia. The fighting took place at a strategic crossroad, which provides access to Lake Albert, Bunia and Tcheyi Zone, 60 km south on Bunia. Tcheyi is a stronghold of the Front des nationalistes et intégrationnistes (FNI) militia group.

The captured militiamen were in military uniform and armed with AK-47 assault rifles. An army jeep paraded the prisoners on Friday throughout Bunia.

"These militia were 37 and attacked the FARDC's [Congolese army's] Bogoro position," Kisanga said.

He said the militia group was led by Ngujolo Chui, who attacked Bogoro from his Mandro base, a village 12 km east of Bunia. During their advance on Bogoro, the militiamen passed through the villages of Ezekere, Likoni and Zumbe, urging the Lendu population to join them.

Fearing exactions, the residents of these villages, estimated at 10,000 people, fled into the bush.

"Everyone refused to join [the FNI fighters]," a man displaced by Friday's fighting, said in Bunia.

Ngujolo Chui (meaning leopard as he often wears leopard skin) is a nurse and self-appointed FNI "colonel". He is the FNI chief of staff. The FNI draws its fighters mainly from the Lendu ethnic group.

Ngujolo was arrested in 2005 for the murder of a certain Lokana in charge of security in the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), a former militia group-turned-political-party headed by Thomas Lubanga. UPC is active in the north of Bunia. After his arrest, he was transferred to the capital, Kinshasa. He was later freed, and he found himself in the Congolese Revolutionary Movement, which is active in the south Bunia, near the border with Uganda.

"He is the one who fought at Peeter Karim's side [a head of an active armed group in Mahagi. Karim is alleged to have killed a UN Nepalese commander last year in Mahagi]. He is in South Bunia actually," Petronille Vaweka, the Ituri district commissioner, told a local radio station in Bunia.

Karim has support of the militia who have refused to lay down their arms, Vaweka said.

The Ituri assistant district commissioner, Mbitso Ngedza, said in the course of their retreat, the militiamen killed a chief of post in Nombe, 3 km south of Bogoro.

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but May not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006