UN: Hutu rebels go missing
2009-02-11 11:16
Kinshasa - At least 150 Rwandan Hutu rebels due to be repatriated from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have gone missing, the United Nations said in a statement on Tuesday.
The group, ex-fighters of the Hutu Rally for Unity and Democracy of the Rwandan People (RUD) and their families went missing overnight on Sunday - on the eve of their planned return to Rwanda, the UN peacekeeping mission MONUC said.
A UN official said the group left all their belongings in a camp in the eastern village of Kisaki where they were staying.
The mission offered no explanation for their disappearance but a UN official suggested the group might have been threatened by members of another Rwandan Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
A Western military source also speculated they might have feared being killed by the Rwandan army, currently present in eastern Congo.
Rwandan and Congolese troops teamed up on January 20 to track down and disarm FDLR rebels in the east. Members of the FDLR took part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
More than 6 000 former Rwandan fighters have voluntarily returned home under a UN programme launched in 2002.