DRC rescue mission under way
2003-06-10 15:45
Bunia - An emergency mission to protect civilians and UN personnel in Bunia, the main town in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) troubled Ituri region, gathered steam on Tuesday with the arrival of dozens of French combat troops.
"Fifty soldiers arrived this morning," the spokesperson of the French-led force, Captain Frederic Solano, told AFP.
The commander of the French-led operation, General Jean-Paul Thonier, also arrived on Tuesday, as did European Union envoy Aldo Ajello.
The ground troops followed advance teams sent last week to secure the airport and prepare for the arrival of the mission mandated by the United Nations and European Union (EU) to use lethal force if necessary in a region blighted by deadly inter-ethnic clashes.
Such fighting and massacres have claimed hundreds of lives in Bunia and the surrounding Ituri region in recent weeks. Tens of thousands have been killed and half a million people displaced since 1999.
"We shall make six flights from Entebbe to Bunia today (Tuesday) to transport soldiers, arms, ammunition and all other required logistical supplies, including vehicles," Solana said.
Three weeks
"We will need three weeks to be fully up and running in Bunia and Entebbe (international airport in neighbouring Uganda). But two or three days from now we will be in a position to do our mission," said Solano.
The troops which arrived on Tuesday morning are from the third marine infantry regiment based in Vannes, western France.
On Monday, about a dozen French soldiers arrived in Bunia from Gabon with military equipment, including armoured vehicles.
On Saturday, a day after the advance troops arrived, one of the ethnic militias in this northeastern region of Ituri tried in vain to shoot its way to control of Bunia. At least 40 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
French troops did not intervene.
The envisaged full strength of the intervention force is some 1 500 troops, 900 of them French.
Three eight-tonne Sagaie armoured vehicles were positioned at Bunia's airport, equipped with machineguns and 90mm artillery.
"It can't climb up walls and doesn't have the same mobility as a tank with caterpillar tracks but it can still go off-road," one officer told AFP.
"Clearly we have more than these three but we are not going to expose all of them," added another officer.
Logistical hurdle
"The airport is the centre of gravity of the whole multinational plan," added another officer, who said he was with a special forces detachment and in charge of security at the facility.
The condition of Bunia's runway presents a major logistical hurdle to the emergency mission, code-named Artemis after the Greek goddess of the moon and hunting.
Less than 2 000m long, it is too short for many aircaft and its surface is badly damaged and gets worse every time a plane lands.
So the international airport at Entebbe, Uganda, is being used as a staging post.
There are even crucial limitations in the very mandate of Artemis. It expires at the end of August and restricts troops to the town and airport of Bunia.
Inter-ethnic clashes and massacres take place in many other parts of Ituri, a DRC region about twice the size of Belgium.
The force will also have to work with a nascent civilian administration, thereby embroiling it in a hotbed of rival politico-military factions.