Kinshasa (Fides Service) - The French Ambassador in Democratic Congo, Georges Serres, has announced that the peace process in the Ituri region, in north-east Congo will be re-launched. The agreement will be conducted within the ambit of the Luanda treaty signed by Congo and by Uganda whose troops have occupied Ituri.
The Ambassador affirms that the international community is committed to reaching a rapid constitution of an Ituri Peace Commission. In Mambasa a UN team continues to investigate reports of violence on civilians on the part of rebels of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, MLC led by Jean-Pierre Bemba and his allies. According to a UN representative more than 500 people questioned confirmed summary executions, mutilation, rape, abduction of children. Not long ago Mambasa was a city with 30,000 people, today it has a population of 300. LM (Source DIA Fides Service 23/1/2003)