UN deploys surveillance drones over DR Congo
Iran Press TV
Wed Dec 4, 2013 4:58PM GMT
The United Nations has for the first time deployed surveillance drones over the Democratic Republic of Congo to monitor the border with Rwanda and Uganda, officials say.
UN officials deployed on Tuesday two Falco drones manufactured by the Italian defence group, Finmeccanica, in order to monitor threats from local and foreign-armed groups in the east of the country.
"The drones…will allow us to have reliable information about the movement of populations in the areas where there are armed groups," UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous said in Goma.
UN experts have accused neighboring Rwanda and Uganda of sending fighters and arms to Congo to support the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels.
"We will survey the areas where there are armed groups and we can control the frontier," Ladsous said.
Congolese troops and UN peacekeepers have been fighting for over a year to crush a rebellion by the rebels, who defected from the Congolese army in April 2012 in protest over the alleged mistreatment in the army. They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.
On November 5, the M23 announced an end to their revolt after an offensive by the Congolese army and UN forces.
The rebels seized Goma on November 20, 2012, after UN peacekeepers gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people. M23 rebels withdrew from the city on December 1 under a ceasefire accord.
Since early May 2012, nearly three million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million resettled in Congo, but about 500,000 crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.
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