UN Helicopter Shot in Bunia
The Monitor (Kampala)
February 25, 2003
Posted to the web February 25, 2003
Frank Nyakairu
Kampala
A United Nations helicopter was on Monday shot at as it took off from the town of Bunia in northeastern DR Congo's troubled Ituri region.
"A MONUC helicopter was fired on above Bunia, 15 minutes after it took off, bound for Beni. The incident happened 40kms south west of Bunia," MONUC said in a statement yesterday.
One bullet penetrated the cockpit of the MI-8 helicopter, but none of the eight people on board was injured.
They included the commander of the MONUC forces, Senegalese Gen. Mountaga Diallo.
"The helicopter was able to continue on its way without any difficulties and landed at Beni (Nord-Kivu) half an hour later," the statement said.
The statement did not say who was behind the shooting.
Gen. Diallo had travelled to Bunia as the head of a team of negotiators who held talks with Thomas Lubanga, head of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia.
The negotiators had discussed with Lubanga the possibility of reviving attempts to set up a pacification commission for Ituri where ethnic fighting, that broke out four years ago, flared up again last November.
On Monday, the UN Security Council ambassadors accredited to DR Congo called for a pacification commission to be set up.
The attack was the first against MONUC since the beginning of the year, and the fifth since the UN observers deployed in the DRC in 1999.
