UN to probe DRC unrest
2004-12-14 13:26
Rutshuru - A UN team was set to leave on Tuesday for the town of Kanyabayonga in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to investigate two days of fighting there, a UN official said.
Kanyabayonga was the scene of clashes on Sunday and Monday between government forces and army rebels. Calm was reported restored on Tuesday.
The United Nations mission in the DRC, known as Monuc, was set to send a team to the town 160km north of Goma, capital of the province of Nord Kivu.
"A mission is leaving this morning and will stay for several days," said Monuc spokesperson Jacqueline Chenard.
The DRC army has been fighting to recapture Kanyabayonga from rebellious soldiers since the weekend, according to Monuc, which has deployed across the country to monitor the peace process.
An officer with the rebellious army faction told AFP the situation was calm on Tuesday. "But they say trucks have arrived with government reinforcements who may attack us," he added.
The fighting has been described as a mutiny of troops from the Congolese army's eighth military region, based in Goma, the chief town of Nord Kivu province.
Fierce fighting
The rebels were drafted into the DRC army under peace pacts to end years of civil war in the DRC. The dissident troops were mainly former rebel fighters in the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a rebel group backed by Rwanda that controlled much of eastern DRC during the war.
The pact that brought the conflict to an end also brought the former rebels into a transitional government, and reorganised the DRC's military into regions when it brought former rebel fighters into its ranks.
Local inhabitants of Rutshuru, half way between Kanyabayonga and Goma, said they saw a UN convoy passing early on Tuesday.
Fierce fighting on Monday pitted dissident soldiers against DRC government troops in Kanyabayonga, where men drawn from a former rebel force said they had killed a dozen regular soldiers.
The rebels took control of central Kanyabayonga, and said they killed regular troops when fighting resumed on the northern outskirts of the town.