3 babies die in DRC massacre
2003-05-12 07:46
Kigali - Three babies had their throats slit and heads smashed on Sunday in the latest massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in which 12 civilians died, UN officials said.
The killings occurred in Bunia in the volatile northeastern Ituri region of the vast central African country. Twenty people died in a massacre on Saturday.
"Five men, four women and three babies - and I really mean babies - were killed", said Patricia Tome, an official with the UN Mission to the DRC (Monuc).
Speaking from Bunia, where rival ethnic groups have clashed repeatedly in the last few days, she said: "The babies had their throats cut or their heads smashed in, and the adults were shot."
In Kampala, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for the deployment of an African Union force to Ituri, saying with its current mandate Monuc was useless.
Meanwhile almost all aid workers have left Bunia, a UN official said.
"Almost all humanitarian staff have left," said Jean-Charles Dupin of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
He said they been flown to either Goma or Kisangani, another DRC town.
Monuc "was not able to provide the security needed by aid workers and their offices", he said.
The UN revised from about 14 to 20 the number of civilians who died on Saturday in the town's Nyakasunza parish compound.
"We took in for shelter 13 nuns who had been hiding and they showed us where the other corpses were", Patricia Tome said.
Another Monuc staff member who had gone to Nyakasunza church on Saturday said that he had seen more than 10 corpses there, including those of two priests.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement on Saturday Monuc headquarters in Bunia "has been attacked by militias, despite the fact that it is sheltering thousands of innocent civilians".
"Thousands of civilians have fled their homes, while militia groups are fighting for control of the town and engaged in extensive looting," he said.
Annan added that militias "have also fired into crowds of displaced persons seeking shelter near Bunia airport".
On Sunday, South African President and African Union Chairperson Thabo Mbeki said he would urge Annan to beef up Monuc's powers to intervene when civilians were in danger.
"The question is what are they going to do to protect civilians? It is a question asked by several African countries. Anybody in their right mind would ask that question," Mbeki's security adviser Billy Masethla said in Pretoria.
Meanwhile Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called in Kampala on Sunday for the deployment of an African Union force to Ituri region.
"The situation in Ituri requires an African force with a proper mandate which should include monitoring a ceasefire if there is any, defending itself, defending civilians, and being able to ultimately enforce peace by dealing with the trouble-causers militarily," Museveni told a press conference.
Museveni clarified that he meant a force deployed by the African Union.
"This (Monuc's) is a useless mandate and I have been speaking to various leaders about the situation and they will know what to do," he said: "I have talked to many people including the UN secretary general, the US, leaders in Europe and other African leaders like President (Thabo) Mbeki and President (Benjamin) Mkapa."
"The current Monuc mandate should change because the best they can do is to observe peace disruptions without taking action," he said: "They (Monuc) remain in their vehicles as people are killed. That is dangerous tourism."
Despite claims to the contrary from officials within and outside Monuc, the force is mandated to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence, wherever possible.
On Thursday, Monuc peacekeepers exchanged fire with militiamen who attacked their headquarters and base at the airport.
The head of UN peacekeeping operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, said on Friday that nearly 700 UN troops had been sent to Bunia.
Interethnic fighting flared in Bunia on Wednesday after the withdrawal of the last Ugandan soldiers who had been deployed there. By the end of Saturday, one half of the town was controlled by ethnic Lendu militia and the other half by Hema militia.
The Lendu are the majority tribe in the Ituri region - of which Bunia is the capital - and have long been engaged in a bitter feud with the minority Hema.
More than 50 000 people have been killed and at least half a million displaced by the clashes in the past few years, according to several estimates. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA