Rebels deny fatal DRC attack
2009-04-20 21:17
Nairobi - Rwandan rebels on Monday denied that they carried out an arson attack on a village in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where seven people died when about 250 huts were torched.
"No member was involved in the attack of which inhabitants of Luofo were the victims overnight on April 17," the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) said in a statement issued from Paris.
The local chief of Luofo village in the Congo's violence-torn Nord-Kivu province had reported the attack on Saturday, blaming the FDLR and stating that five children were among seven people burnt to death.
Rebels outnumbered the army
The denial, signed by FDLR executive secretary Calliste Mbarushimana, also said the rebels were "ready to help any commission of person of good faith in the identification of those responsible for the raid".
After the attack took place late on Friday, chief Joseph Mulindwe told AFP by telephone that the Congolese army tried to stop the invaders but were helpless as the rebels outnumbered them.
"The rebels burnt 250 houses," he said, adding that the huts went up in flames quickly because they had straw roofs.
"Five children and two elderly people died," he said.
The FDLR has been operating out of eastern Congo since the aftermath of Rwanda's 1994 genocide by Hutus against the Tutsi minority. Some of its members are accused of being among the main perpetrators of those massacres.
The FDLR and the villagers had lived in relative harmony before a joint Congolese-Rwandan military operation in January to flush out the rebels from the area, the village chief said.
The operation did not wipe out the FDLR, still estimated at 4 500 strong, but drove them out of more populated areas in Nord-Kivu into the surrounding forests, whence they launch their attacks.
Grow and sell marijuana
The UN mission in Congo, known as Monuc, early on Saturday sent peacekeeping troops to the sprawling village of some 14 000 people and the Red Cross despatched a team to bury the victims, Mulindwe said.
The FDLR had controlled gold mines in the region and grew marijuana which was then sold in the markets of Goma, the main city of Nord-Kivu.
"They have become crueller than before," Mulindwe said.
The UN special envoy to DRC has renewed a plea for additional resources to better protect civilians against attack by Rwandan Hutu rebels and other armed groups.
Briefing the UN Security Council last Thursday, Alan Doss underscored the need to protect civilians "from the predatory activities of foreign armed groups and undisciplined elements of (Congolese) security forces".
He renewed a long-standing plea for additional resources, notably for 18 helicopters for rapid deployment and reaction, to beef up the UN mission in the sprawling mineral-rich central African nation.
Doss warned that without the helicopters, "Monuc's capacity to respond rapidly to emerging threats and to protect civilian populations will be curtailed" and its support for Congolese troops "will be seriously constrained".