AFRICA/CONGO RD - Fresh fighting in eastern Congo, more civilians move, the region has at least 800,000 internally displaced persons

Tuesday, 13 November 2007

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides)- Rebel troops of Laurent Nkunda attacked a refugee camp near Goma, the main city in north Kivu in the east of Democratic Congo. Congo army sources say the attack was thwarted and 27 of the assailants were killed. UN humanitarian agencies say the attack caused thousands of camp dwellers to seek shelter elsewhere. Since the beginning of this year 375,000 people left their villages because of fighting between the regular army troops, the rebels of Nkunda and local Mai Mai militia. Some 20,000 people are sheltering in camps around. In the area there are an estimated 800,000 displaced persons.
General Nkunda, Congolese Tutsi (Banyamulenge) is the self-proclaimed defender of the Tutsi minority living in the area against attacks by members of the old Rwandan army (FAR) and Rwandan Hutu militia (Interahamwe) accused of the 1994 genocide, according to the UN about 6,000 militia.
On 10 November Rwanda and Democratic Congo reached an agreement in Nairobi, Kenya, to draft a plan to "remove the threat” of Rwandan Hutu militia still present in Congo.
The agreement between the two Great Lakes countries were counter signed by representatives of the European Union, the United States and the United Nations as guarantors. For this reason the UN mission in Congo MONUC will be charged with “supplying support to planning and putting into action the plan”. The government of Kinshasa promised “to launch immediate military operations to dismantle the former FAR/Interahamwe” defined in the agreement “genocidal/military organisations”. An accusation rejected by a spokesman of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, which comprises most of the Rwandan former military and Hutu militia in the area. This is the first time the Congolese government signs an agreement which describes the Hutu militia with this term.
The various armed groups operating in the area are often more interested in the local mineral resources. A complex scenario which goes beyond former Rwandan combatants, used many times as a pretext for foreign interference in the region.
Since 1998, in various conflicts in Congo, an estimated 4 million people have been killed. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 13/11/2007 righe 30 parole 396)


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