AFRICA/DEMOCRATIC CONGO - UN PEACEKEEPERS ATTACKED, ONE INJURED, IN BUNIA CAPITAL OF ITURI REGION. NORMALISATION IN NORTH CONGO SLOW IN RETURNING

Friday, 7 November 2003

Bunia (Fides Service)- “Night time shooting battles have become a common thing” a local source in Bunia main town of north eastern region of Ituri in Democratic Congo tells Fides. Ituri has been the centre of a civil war which has dragged on for years. “During the ight of November 5 one of the UN peacekeepers, a soldier from Ururguay, was slightly injured during an attack on the MONUC night patrol” Fides sources report. MONUC, the UN Mission in Congo deployed in the area in September to replace the Artemis mission sent by the European Union.
“MONUC has reestablished security in the city centre around the cathedral but many outlying districts are still prey to attacks by armed bandits who attack mainly at night ” says Fides source. “It is not only the armed groups of Hema and Lendu who fight and attack the UN peacekeepers, there are also bandits and criminals interested only in money. They break into homes to steal, often killing the men and raping the women.”
Our source adds: “The sitaution is no better in the rest of the region because MONUC troops are slow to move. Whole villages are prey to violence. People are exhausted by this situation. Every effort must be made to restore security. ”.
“Our government sent a contingent of police to be trained by the United Nations, but it will take time for them to operate effectively on the territory” Fides sources conclude.
Since the conflict in Ituri began in 1999 it has caused more than 50,000 victims, some of them priests. On May 7 this year Father Raphaël Ngona was murdered in his home; on May 11 in Nyakasanza two priests, parish priest Father François Xavier Mateso and his assistant Father Aimé Ndjabu, were murdered by guerrillas. Their mutiliated bodies were found in the parish complex where many of the local people had taken refuge to escape the violence and at least 48 were killed. (L.M) (Fides Service 7/11/2003 lines 35 words 407)


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