Security worse in Bunia despite French troops-U.N.
By Matthew Green
BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Security is worsening in Bunia despite the French troops deployed to the Congolese town where 48 people have been kidnapped and nine murdered in the past week, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.
The vanguard of a 1,500-strong French-led force sent to protect civilians from tribal bloodshed said had too few soldiers in place to stop a spate of killings and abductions.
"The security situation in Bunia is worsening," said Madnodje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC).
He told reporters that of the 48 people seized in the last week, 14 had been kidnapped this weekend alone. In separate incidents, eight people were murdered, one by beheading, and one kidnapped last week was later found dead.
The French-led international force began deploying on June 6 in response to clashes between ethnic Hema and Lendu militias in and around the town, which killed 500 civilians in the past month, according to U.N. estimates.
Fighting between rival gangs of gunmen has been absent from the town center for the past week, but inhabitants say the disappearances and murders appear to be getting worse.
Five of those abducted last week escaped, the rest have simply vanished.
Residents speak of gunmen bursting into houses at night and dragging away victims or attacking them as they wander paths through undergrowth and abandoned houses on the edge of town.
A sixty-year-old woman described how her brother had told her to flee when men approached them as they were gathering sweet potatoes on the southern fringes of Bunia Sunday.
"When I was running I heard some screaming behind me," she told reporters by her brother's freshly-dug grave. "I thought it was a woman, when I came back to look I found he had been murdered." Her brother was killed by a machete blow to the neck.
MONUC said it could not say who was responsible for the killings, which it said were generally carried out by armed men in military uniform.
Bunia is controlled by the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), composed of ethnic Hema, which like many armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo counts child soldiers among its ranks and has been accused of human rights abuses.
LIMITED PATROLS
Some 500 French troops have arrived to secure the airport and mount limited patrols, but the French force said it might not be able to guarantee residents' safety until it reached full strength over the next few weeks.
"Today we are not in a position where we're going to be able to secure the town, but that will come," spokesman Major Xavier Pons told reporters. "For the moment our main concern is to deploy."
The French-led force was approved by the European Union in response to an appeal from the United Nations.
France is providing the bulk of the troops, but EU members including Britain and Germany are expected to help. South Africa and Canada are among non-European participants.
06/16/03 11:54 ET
