Ten die in DRC fighting

2003-05-14 21:15

Kigali - At least 10 people were killed and about 100 wounded, most of them women and children, on Wednesday as fierce clashes rocked the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bunia, said a UN spokesperson as fears mounted of a humanitarian disaster.

"We have 10 dead and more than 100 wounded in today's fighting," said Mamadou Bah, a spokesperson for the UN's military mission in DRC, Monuc.

"That is only the ones Monuc saw," added Bah, speaking from the UN mission's compound in Bunia.

There are some 700 Monuc troops in Bunia.

"Those killed died of their injuries either in the hospital or the road leading to it," he said.

"All the wounded are civilians, mostly women and children," explained Monuc's chief spokesperson, Patricia Tome.

A little earlier, Bah said: "They are shooting around the Monuc compound, they are shooting everywhere.

"We can hear mortars, shells, artillery and bursts of heavy machine-gun fire," he said.

Wednesday's fighting, which pitted fighters drawn from the majority Lendu ethnic group against their arch-rivals, the minority Hemas, broke out shortly before midday, two days after a Hema-led group, the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), took control of the town.

Repeated clashes

Aid workers, meanwhile, were only able to reach those residents gathered at the airport or in Monuc's compound.

"The situation is incredibly unstable," Oxfam spokesperson Gemma Swart said from Goma, a DRC town on the Rwandan border.

"It is so bad we are only able to work at Monuc-protected sites," she said, explaining that these were limited to 3 000 civilians at Monuc's compound and about 4 000 at the town's airport.

"It's just not safe to go anywhere else," said Swart.

Bunia's population is normally in the region of 350 000, but many of the town's inhabitants fled over the last week as armed factions from the region's two main ethnic groups, the minority Hema and majority Lendu, clashed repeatedly.

There were unconfirmed reports on Wednesday of a large column of civilians heading south from Bunia to the town of Beni.

Some 80 percent of Bunia was empty on Wednesday morning, according to Monuc.

"We would say civilians are provided no protection by Monuc. Monuc is not in control. The situation is precarious and we have grave concerns about trying to avert a humanitarians crisis," said the Oxfam spokesperson.

France

"Therefore, the UN Security Council must send in a rapid reaction peace enforcement force to provide security for civilians and enforce peace in Bunia and in the wider Ituri area," she said.

On Tuesday, France said it was ready to accept a security council request to send troops to Bunia to work alongside Monuc.

The UPC, which has close links to the larger Rwanda-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) rebel group, responded to this offer by warning it would treat French troops in Bunia as "enemies."

And the RCD said sending in French troops would "aggravate the situation because of the stance the French government has taken in the Congolese conflict."

"One cannot ignore French support of (DRC's) President Joseph Kabila, his government and Lendu militias who have received material, personnel and ideological support from Kinshasa," said RCD official Crispin Kabasele.

On Tuesday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he would ask other countries to match France's offer.

Political and practical support

"We are in touch with other other governments to see if they will join France in such an effort," Annan told reporters.

Speaking in Pretoria, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain was ready to provide "political and practical support" to the DRC.

He added that he planned to visit the Great Lakes region, along the country's eastern border at an unspecified date with his French opposite number Dominique de Villepin.

"The situation in the east of the DRC remains of grave concern," Straw said.

DRC Human Rights Minister Ntumba Luaba, who had been in Bunia for several days, was able to take off from Bunia airport during a lull in the fighting on Wednesday.

He was due to fly to Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania, where a meeting was planned with DRC President Joseph Kabila and leaders of Ituri's armed groups.

It was not clear which of these leaders was on the plane with Luaba.

UPC leader Thomas Lubanga said he had not sent a delegation with the minister but planned to send a team to Dar es Salaam either Wednesday or Thursday.

- AFX