DRC rebels kill 16, kidnap 34

2005-01-30 13:10

Kinshasa - Militiamen carrying guns and machetes killed 16 people this week and kidnapped at least 34 young girls in a series of attacks on a remote area of eastern Congo, the United Nations said.

Two platoons of UN peacekeepers arrived in the remote area by helicopter early Saturday to protect the population from further violence, UN spokesperson Christophe Boulierarch said by telephone from Bunia, capital of Ituri province.

Bunia is 60km south of Che, an area of enormous green hills that has been attacked several times since January 19.

Boulierarch and a team of 60 Pakistani peacekeepers had tried to reach Che on Friday but were delayed due to bad weather. Poor roads make the area difficult to reach.

Earlier this week, aid workers with the group German Agro Action reported seeing burning houses and residents streaming out of Che as it was under attack.

Boulierarch cited witnesses as saying that 34 girls had been kidnapped from Che and two others were missing.

Residents told the UN that 15 people were murdered by armed ethnic Lendu militiamen. Boulierarch said he saw the body of another old man along the road outside town who had been shot once in the head.

Militiamen have terrorised the village every day since January 19, looting and burning homes, and killing people in the night, Boulierarch said.

34 girls kidnapped

Residents said militiamen kidnapped the 34 young girls early on Saturday, just before peacekeepers arrived. Boulierarch said a helicopter reconnaissance flight over Che found 220 homes burned and crops scorched and smouldering.

He said it wasn't yet clear how many people fled the area. The only people remaining were women, children, and those too sick or old to run.

"About 31 blue helmets will sleep there overnight to protect the women and kids," Boulierarch said. "We don't want them alone in this place tonight."

Ituri has long been the setting of vicious fighting between ethnic Lendu and Hema militias, whose hatred for one another is displayed in macabre massacres and tit-for-tat raids.

Since 1999, fighting in Ituri has killed more than 50 000 and forced 500 000 to flee their homes, UN officials and human rights groups say.

The Ituri conflict came amid a larger, five-year, six-nation war in Congo that killed nearly 4 million people, mostly through starvation and disease. The 1998-2002 war ended with the creation of a transitional government in 2003 that has struggled to extend its authority to the vast country's often lawless east.

During the war, both neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda armed the Hema and Lendu militias, mainly to wrest control of the mineral-rich territory. The two sides eventually turned on one another.

- AP