Attacks prompt U.N. to boost patrols in east Congo
By Finbarr O'Reilly
KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) - The United Nations is stepping up peacekeeping patrols in the lawless jungles of eastern Congo following a series of deadly militia attacks on remote villages, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.
A wave of attacks has displaced some 20,000 people since late December in the volatile South Kivu province bordering Rwanda, say aid agencies and MONUC, the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We've sent in about 80 South African troops to patrol on foot to get these attacks to stop," said Sebastien Lapierre, a MONUC spokesman in the eastern Congolese town of Bukavu.
The attacks took place near the towns of Bunyakiri and Hombo, about 60 miles northwest of Bukavu. U.N. officials said witnesses had spoken of 10 deaths, but that figure had not been verified.
Lapierre blamed the attacks on the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, an extremist Rwandan Hutu group that includes thousands of "Interahamwe" gunmen accused of committing the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The presence of the "genocidaires" in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo sparked a five-year war that destabilized central Africa and killed at least 3 million people, most from hunger and disease.
The conflict officially ended last July when the main belligerents forged a transitional government and a unified national army, but much of the vast country remains anarchic and overrun by ragtag militias and armed bandits.
The United Nations has struggled to stabilize eastern Congo, a wild region with few roads, rugged mountains and dense jungles where ethnic tensions run high and competition for resources fuels fighting among rivals.
"We've started patrolling more aggressively," said Lapierre, adding 20 ton of food aid were to be delivered Monday to some of the eight villages attacked in recent weeks.
Congo's war erupted in 1998 when Rwanda invaded to hunt down those responsible for the 1994 genocide, when some 800,000 people were killed in 100 days.
It mushroomed when half a dozen African countries sent armies into the former Zaire in a scramble for natural riches such as gold, diamonds and timber.
01/12/04 08:52 ET
