Violence in DR Congo and Great Lakes region gets all-out attention from the UN Security Council

Report by DipoNews.com dated Thursday, 25 July 2013:

Violence in the DRC and Great Lakes region gets all-out attention from the UNSC

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been the topic of multiple United Nations Security Council (UNSC)'s meetings this month: On July 11, Under-Secretary-General of Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous introduced the latest UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) report; on July 19, the Group of Experts (GoE) sent its interim report to the DRC Sanctions Committee; and on July 22, Azerbaijani Ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev and Chair of this Committee presented his conclusions to the UNSC.

The upsurge in violence in the DRC and the Great Lakes region between the UN/Congolese troops and several armed groups including the March 23 Movement (M23), the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF-NALU) and the Mayi Mayi Kata-Katanga prompted a UNSC ministerial on July 25 whose presidential statement reiterated the international community's support for the implementation of the commitments under the Peace, Security and Cooperation (PSC) Framework agreed on February 24.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (see his remarks and report), the President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, and Mr. Ban's Special Envoy for the Great  Lakes region, Mary Robinson, briefed the UNSC on their trip to the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda on May 22-24. The UNSC welcomed the announcement made by the World Bank of USD 1 bn in planned funding for development projects in the Great Lakes region and commended "the personal diplomatic engagement" of SG Ban and reaffirmed its strong support to Mrs Robinson who was encouraged "to lead, coordinate and assess" the implementation of national and regional commitments under the PSC Framework in view of the next meeting of the "11+4" Regional Oversight Mechanism scheduled for September.

The meeting took place amid growing fears voiced by humanitarian organizations about a possible UN-led military offensive which could make the humanitarian situation worse. The diplomats focused on Resolution 2098 and the further implementation of the decision to create a 3,000-strong intervention brigade as part of the MONUSCO. Also, the regional oversight mechanism of the PSC Framework held its first meeting in Addis Ababa on May 26 and welcomed the establishment of a technical support committee to define regional benchmark, several days after the M23 carried out attacks in the Mutaho area, in the vicinity of Goma.

Additional attacks targeted the Congolese army on July 11 in Kamango and the MONUSCO on July 14 along the Muba-Kamango axis at the initiative of the ADF-NALU,   which resulted in several casualties and prompted over 60,000 refugees to flee to neighboring Uganda. Besides, the UNSC took note that hundreds of M23 combatants, including individuals listed by the UN sanctions regime concerning the DRC, fled from the DRC into Rwanda on March 18, however appreciating the initial steps swiftly taken by the government of Rwanda to handle this situation.

Once again, the UNSC demanded that all the armed groups cease immediately all forms of violence and fully disband and disarm. According to French Minister delegate for development Pascal Canfin, "these attacks severely compromised regional and international efforts to find a lasting solution to the crisis in the Great Lakes region," that's why France and other countries have urged the "swift implementation" of the MONUSCO intervention brigade. 

Read more
Renewed fears on DRC's stability as M23 advances towards Goma, civilians flee to Uganda
Rwanda and South Korea (ROK) increase bilateral cooperation, sign one Development agreement

Click on the links at source: 
http://www.diplonews.com/intro/2013/20130726_UNSCFocusOnDRC.php

UN has accused Rwanda of wholesale war crimes, including possibly genocide, during years of conflict in the DR Congo

ACCORDING to an alleged UN report leaked by France's Le Monde newspaper, an unprecedented investigation investigation by the UN human rights commissioner says Hutu deaths 'cannot be put down to margins of war'.

Reportedly, the Rwandan government reacted angrily to the report today, dismissing it as "amateurish" and "outrageous" after attempting to pressure the UN not to publish it by threatening to pull out of international peacekeeping missions.

See report from guardian.co.uk
By Chris McGreal in Washington, Xan Rice in Nairobi, and Lizzy Davies in Paris - Thursday 26 August 2010 20.45 BST:
Leaked UN report accuses Rwanda of possible genocide in Congo

The United Nations has accused Rwanda of wholesale war crimes, including possibly genocide, during years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

An unprecedented 600-page investigation by the UN high commissioner for human rights catalogues years of murder, rape and looting in a conflict in which hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.

A draft version of the report, revealed by Le Monde and expected to be published next month, says the abuses, over a period of seven years and two invasions by Rwanda, amount to "crimes against humanity, war crimes, or even genocide" because the principal targets of the violence were Hutus, who were killed in their tens of thousands.

Among the accusations is that Rwandan forces and local allies rounded up hundreds of men, women and children at a time and butchered them with hoes and axes. On other occasions Hutu refugees were bayoneted, burned alive or killed with hammer blows in large numbers.

It is the first time the UN has published such forthright allegations against Rwanda, a close ally of Britain and the US.

The Rwandan government reacted angrily to the report today, dismissing it as "amateurish" and "outrageous" after reportedly attempting to pressure the UN not to publish it by threatening to pull out of international peacekeeping missions.

Rwanda's Tutsi leaders will be particularly discomforted by the accusation of genocide when they have long claimed the moral high ground for bringing to an end the 1994 genocide in their own country. But the report was welcomed by human rights groups, which called for the prosecution of those responsible for war crimes.

The report covers two periods: Rwanda's 1996 invasion of the country then called Zaire in pursuit of Hutu soldiers and others who fled there after carrying out the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, and a second invasion two years later that broadened into a regional war involving eight countries.

Rwanda's attack on Zaire in 1996 was initially aimed at clearing the vast UN refugee camps around Goma and Bukavu, which were being used as cover by Hutu armed forces to continue the war against the new Tutsi-led government in Kigali.

Hundreds of thousands of the more than 1 million Hutus in eastern Zaire were forced back to Rwanda. Many more, including men who carried out the genocide but also large numbers of women and children, fled deeper into Zaire. They were pursued and attacked by the Rwandan army and a Zairean rebel group sponsored by Kigali, the AFDL.

The UN report describes "the systematic, methodical and premeditated nature of the attacks on the Hutus [which] took place in all areas where the refugees had been tracked down".

"The pursuit lasted months and, occasionally, humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, notably in the eastern province, thus depriving them of things essential to their survival," the report said.

"The extent of the crimes and the large number of victims, probably in the several tens of thousands, are demonstrated by the numerous incidents detailed in the report. The extensive use of non-firearms, particularly hammers, and the systematic massacres of survivors after camps were taken prove that the number of deaths cannot be put down to the margins of war. Among the victims were mostly children, women, old and ill people."

The report goes on to say that "the systematic and widespread attacks have a number of damning elements which, if proved before a competent court, could be described as crimes of genocide".

The UN also adds that while Kigali has permitted Hutus to return to Rwanda in large numbers, that did not "rule out the intention of destroying part of an ethnic group as such and thus committing a crime of genocide".

The Zairean army collapsed in the face of the invasion and Rwanda seized the opportunity to march across the country and overthrow the longstanding dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Laurent Kabila was installed as president. He promptly changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Rwanda invaded again in 1998 after accusing the new regime of continuing to support Hutu rebels. The following five years of war drew in armies from eight nations as well as 21 rebel groups in a conflict that quickly descended in to mass plunder of the DRC's minerals as well as a new wave of war crimes.

The UN report accuses Angolan forces of using the cover of the war to attack refugees from Angola's conflict-plagued Cabinda province who had fled to the DRC. Angola is accused of "executing all those they suspected of colluding with their enemies". Angolan soldiers also raped and looted, the UN investigation said.

International human rights groups welcomed the UN report and said it should be used to bring the accused to trial. "This is a very important report," said Human Rights Watch. "We hope that it can form the basis for ending the impunity that has protected the people responsible for some of these crimes."

The UN's damning conclusions will prove hugely embarrassing to Rwanda, which is attempting to project itself as a rapidly modernising state that has put its brutal recent history behind it.

President Paul Kagame's office attempted to dismiss the report. "It's an amateurish NGO job, and it's outrageous," said a spokeswoman, Yolande Makolo. "Nobody reasonable believes that it's helpful to anybody. The countries mentioned in the draft report have rejected it and will continue to reject it."

Makolo did not comment on reports that Kagame last month warned the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, that Rwanda would pull its troops out of peacekeeping missions in Darfur and elsewhere if the report was made public. Le Monde said that threat was reiterated in a letter to Ban by Rwanda's foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the leaked draft was not the final version and the report to be published next month had undergone revisions.

"It's only a draft from about two months ago and the proper final version will come up very soon," he said.

But if there are substantial differences, the UN is likely to stand accused of bowing to pressure from Rwanda.

Atrocities detailed in the UNHCR document seen by Le Monde

Kinigi, 7 December 1996 "Elements from the AFDL/APR killed nearly 310 civilians, many of them women and children. The troops had accused the local population, mostly Hutu, of sheltering Interahamwe [Hutu paramilitaries, who] had already left the village. At first the troops sought to reassure the civilians [whom they gathered together] in several buildings, including the adventist church and the primary school. In the afternoon, troops entered these buildings and killed the villagers with hoes or axes to the head."

Luberizi, 29 October 1996 "Elements from the AFDL/APR/FAB [Burundi's armed forces] killed around 200 male refugees. The victims were part of a group of refugees told by the troops to regroup so that they could be repatriated to Rwanda. The troops separated the men from the rest of the group and killed them with bayonets or bullets. The bodies were then buried in mass graves [near to] the church."

Bwegera, 3 November 1996 "They burned alive 72 Rwandan refugees in Cotonco (cotton company) headquarters, one kilometre from the village."

Mutiko, December 1996 "Special units from the AFDL/APR started to hunt down refugees, killing several hundred. Once they had been intercepted at barriers put up by the troops, the victims were given food and told to get into UN lorries waiting at the exit of the village. The victims were then taken out on to the road, then killed with blows to the head with canes, hammers and axes. The troops encouraged the local population to take part in the killings."

Congo Siasa blog: List of armed groups in the Kivus

TODAY, thanks to Alun McDonald's tweet (see details below), I found Jason Stearns' blog, Congo Siasa at http://congosiasa.blogspot.com and noted his list of armed groups in the Kivus published on 09 June 2010 at his blog post entitled List of armed groups in the Kivus.

According to the 'About' page at Congo Siasa blog, Mr Stearns has been working on the conflict in the DR Congo for the past eight years, most recently as the Coordinator of the United Nations Group of Experts on the Congo (2008). He has also worked for Heritiers de la Justice, a local human rights NGO (2001), the UN peacekeeping mission MONUC (2002-2004) and the International Crisis Group (2005-2007). A book he wrote on the conflict, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, is due to be published soon. He is currently obtaining his PhD at Yale University.

Hat tip: Alun McDonald's tweet 10 June 2010 - A who’s who of armed groups in eastern Congo http://is.gd/cJOt5.

Note, according to Mr McDonald's bio, he is based in Nairobi, Kenya, "working for Oxfam, covering Sudan, Congo, Somalia and everywhere in between". See alunmcdonald's photostream at Flickr and the photo set on Sudan where he lived between 2006 and 2009. Most of the photos were taken in Darfur, South Sudan, the eastern Red Sea State, Khartoum (the capital), and the northern desert. The photos from Great Lakes: Congo, Uganda, Rwanda were taken from between 04 May 2009 and 30 June 2009. Here is a sample.



A hotel in Kiwanja, North Kivu, destroyed in the fighting in late 2008. In November 2008, a massacre in this small town killed 150 people. (Photo and caption by Alun McDonald)



A camp in North KIvu, sheltering thousands of people who fled the fighting in late 2008. (Photo and caption by Alun McDonald)



UN peacekeepers set up a military checkpoint in North Kivu, eastern Congo. (Photo and caption by Alun McDonald)



Red Cross tented hospital in North Kivu, eastern Congo. (Photo and caption by Alun McDonald)



Main street in Goma, the state capital in eastern Congo. The volcano - which glows red at night - dominates the town. (Photo and caption by Alun McDonald)

MSF: DR Congo army has used vaccination clinics as "bait" to attack civilians in N. Kivu

The Congolese government says military operations in the area have been suspended to allow an inquiry into the UN allegations that soldiers had killed civilians.

From BBC News Friday, 6 November 2009:
DR Congo army 'used aid as bait'

The Democratic Republic of Congo army has used vaccination clinics as "bait" to attack civilians, says aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

Thousands of Hutu civilians were targeted when they visited sites set up to combat a measles epidemic, in areas controlled by the rebels, MSF said.

It denounced the attacks in North Kivu as "an abuse of humanitarian action".

On Monday the UN withdrew its support for a government army unit, accusing soldiers of killing 62 civilians.

MSF said the clinics were targeted despite security guarantees from all parties to enable the mass immunisation scheme to be carried out in the Maisisi district north-west of the city of Goma.

It said it was operating in support of the Ministry of Health, whose workers were unable to access regions controlled by the Hutu rebel group, the FDLR.

"We feel we were used as bait," said Luis Encinas, head of MSF programmes in Central Africa.

"How will MSF be perceived by the population now? Will our patients still feel safe enough to come for medical care?"

The targeting of civilians has been a major concern for charities operating in DR Congo and UN support for the government had been dependent on it respecting the neutrality of civilians.

The Congolese government says military operations in the area have been suspended to allow an inquiry into the UN allegations that soldiers had killed civilians.

The UN had been helping the army tackle the FDLR since January 2009.

The rebels have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region.

Their leaders fled to the area in 1994 after being accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide and have since been fighting with the local Tutsi population and government troops.

Rwanda and DR Congo agree to co-operate to deal with forces along their common border blamed for 1994 Rwandan genocide

November 14, 2008 BBC report - Congo to help fight Rwanda rebels:

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have agreed to co-operate to deal with forces along their common border blamed for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Both countries' foreign ministers said Rwandan intelligence teams would go into DR Congo to help eradicate them.

The Hutu fighters have lived in eastern DR Congo since 1994 and have been a key factor in destabilising the region.

The Congolese government has often promised to stop Hutu forces from using its territory, but has not done so.

Its forces have been accused of instead working with the FDLR to exploit the region's rich mines.

In last year's Nairobi agreement, the FDLR forces - estimated to number more than 6,000 - were meant to have been disarmed by the end of August.

The deadline was missed. At this point Gen Nkunda's forces resumed fighting.

But speaking at a joint news conference in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the foreign ministers of Rwanda and DR Congo committed themselves to a course of action that correspondents say could change events in the region.

They agreed to Rwandan intelligence officers going into DR Congo to work with the Congolese army and the international community to help end the presence of the Hutu militia who have operated from the region's hills and forests.

"We confirm our firm will to bring a military plan, with man-power and material support from different countries, to enable us once and for all to put an end to the problem of the FDLR," DR Congo's Foreign Minister Alexis Mwamba Thambwe said.

By foot

Meanwhile, the UN says it is to move 60,000 people from a camp north of Goma to a location west of the city in case of fighting.

The people at Kibati camp are close to the front line separating government troops and rebels loyal to Gen Nkunda.

The UN refugee agency said aid workers have plotted out the new site - called Mugunga III - and most people will have to make the 15km journey there by foot.

Fighting has stopped aid from reaching Kibati and forced many there to flee south to the provincial capital, Goma.

The UN has accused both sides of war crimes during the latest upsurge in violence.

On Friday, women - some with black bin liners covering their hair - gathered at a sports stadium in Goma housing thousands of people who have fled the fighting.

They held up signs saying: "We mourn our children killed in Rutshuru" and "Enough of camp life".

"Women are tired of this war. We are just the victims. All people involved in this war are raping," one demonstrator, Solange Nyamulisa, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

A spokesman for the charity ActionAid told the BBC that cases of rape and violence against women have risen dramatically since the latest fighting broke out.

- - -

Cry for peace in DR Congo

Hundreds of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo have taken part in a protest in the eastern city of Goma to demand peace and protection for the region.

"Women are tired of this war, we are just the victims" - Demonstrator Solange Nyamulisa



The demonstrators sang in Swahili "God take care of us, we are tired".



The women say they are being raped by rebel fighters, as well as army and police forces.

One woman, speaking from hospital, said she was among a group of villagers who had been raped by Mai Mai rebels in front of their husbands, who the insurgents had tied up with ropes.

Source: BBC News In Pictures: Cry for peace in Congo

UNHCR says 60,000 refugees in Kibati camp north of Nord-Kivu, Goma are to be moved off frontline - Rebels & govt forces are 600 metres apart at Kibati

Saturday, 15 November 2008 (AFP) report via The West Australian:

60,000 refugees move off Congo frontline

About 60,000 refugees are to be moved from the frontline of fighting between Democratic Republic of Congo rebels and government forces, the United Nations said on Friday amid a "volatile" standoff between the two sides.

Meanwhile there are fears the fierce fighting is threatening the sanctuary of the remaining mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park.

Renewed fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between followers of renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda and the army has displaced more than 250,000 people and left more than 100 civilian dead, according to UN and private aid agencies.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said 60,000 people in camps at Kibati, just north of the flashpoint Nord-Kivu provincial capital of Goma, would have to be moved.

"Given the continuing security threat, provincial authorities, UNHCR and its partners have decided to transfer the more than 60,000 people in the two Kibati camps as soon as possible, in a few days," said UNHCR spokesman in Geneva Ron Redmond.

Rebels and government forces are about 600 metres apart at Kibati and a UN peacekeeping force spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, said the force was negotiating "to reduce the tension and keep the belligerents separated as much as possible".

Nkunda's troops have surrounded Goma, the main city in eastern DR Congo with about 500,000 people, for the past two weeks.

The UN special envoy for the crisis, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, arrived on Friday in Kinshasa, where he was to meet DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila.

DR Congo foreign minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba held talks with ministers and officials in Rwanda on Friday on regional efforts to end the crisis. DR Congo accuses Rwanda of backing Nkunda, but the Kigali government strongly denies this.

Mwamba said after the talks: "Rwanda has an important role to play in the search for a solution to the crisis."

The World Food Program (WFP) said it had begun distributing food supplies for about 12,000 people in rebel-held areas north of Goma, the first operation of its kind since the end of October.

Congo's Virunga National Park has been the victim of a "real bloodbath" after fighting between government and rebel forces spread there, threatening the biodiversity of the UNESCO-listed site, Environment Minister Jose Endundo Bononge said.

"The war that has been imposed on us in the east (of the country) has been a real bloodbath for the environmental sector," Endundo said at a press conference in Kinshasa.

He lamented the "immense harm" caused not only to the park's biodiversity but also the country's tourist industry.

Fighting between the Congolese army and Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People spread to Virunga, home to more than half the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas, at the end of October.

Even before that, "In 2007 alone, we recorded the slaughter of 15 mountain gorillas and more than 20,000 antelopes," the minister said, adding that in the past decade the number of hippopotami had fallen from 30,000 to 1,000.

Endundo said Nkunda has placed his own men to protect the park, replacing wildlife officers from the Congolese National Park Authorities.

The rebels have occupied the south side of the park for the past three weeks, while thousands of displaced people have sought refuge there.

- - -

Thursday, November 13, 2008 (Reuters) report by Hereward Holland:

Aid workers to relocate Congo frontline refugees

GOMA, Congo, Nov 13, 2008 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of refugees at a frontline camp in east Congo must be urgently moved to a safer place so they are not caught in crossfire between rebels and the army, aid officials said on Thursday.

More than 65,000 civilians who have fled weeks of fighting are camped at Kibati, just a few kilometres south of combat lines held by Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda and government troops who oppose them.

The refugees, squatting in cramped, dirty conditions within sight of a live volcano, are among 250,000 civilians forced from their homes since a resurgence of fighting in late August in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern North Kivu province.

Recent frontline artillery and machine gun battles near Kibati have several times disrupted aid distribution to the refugees and sent thousands of them streaming south down the road towards the provincial capital Goma, 10 km (6 miles) away.

"We noticed that this area became the front line ... these (refugees) in Kibati cannot stay in that place," Ibrahima Coly, head of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in North Kivu, said.

"We noticed these people might be in serious danger and the humanitarian community decided we should move them from there ... as soon as possible," he told Reuters.

Relief agencies planned to truck civilians who agreed to go to a camp at Mugunga, 10 km (6 miles) west of Goma, he said.

The U.N. has its largest peacekeeping force in the world, 17,000-strong, in Congo but U.N. peacekeepers have been unable to protect hundreds of thousands of uprooted civilians in North Kivu from killings, lootings and rape. Human rights groups say both rebels and government troops have committed abuses.

"What I heard from (U.N. peacekeepers) is that ... they don't have the capacity to protect people (in Kibati)," one aid worker, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Nkunda, who wants President Joseph Kabila to agree to talks on Congo's future, last month pushed an offensive by his battle-hardened guerrillas to the gates of Goma, attracting a wave of international attention to the North Kivu conflict.

He suspended the offensive by declaring a ceasefire.

FEARS OF REBEL INFILTRATION

Aid officials say the fighting has created a "catastrophic" security and humanitarian situation, which risks repeating the kind of human devastation caused by a 1998-2003 war that killed several million and engulfed the former Belgian colony.

The aid worker who requested anonymity said their was also a risk Nkunda's fighters may mingle with the displaced civilians.

"If clashes happen, displaced (people) will be moving from the camp to Goma. This might facilitate the infiltration of armed people among the displaced running towards Goma," the worker added.

Humanitarian agencies are clamouring for urgent U.N. troop reinforcements for east Congo. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the Security Council to approve 3,000 more.

"The major preoccupation for us is security," Marjon Kamara, head of UNHCR's Africa department, told Reuters in Senegal.

But U.N. officials say even if approved, troops could take two months to deploy. Eastern and southern African states have also offered peacekeepers, but under a U.N. or regional mandate.

At Kiwanja, near Rutshuru, 70 km (40 miles) north of Goma in the rebel-held zone, human rights groups accuse Nkunda's rebels and a rival pro-government militia of killing dozens of civilians, mostly adults, in tit-for-tat reprisals last week.

They say these took place despite U.N. troops being nearby.

Commanders of the U.N. force in Congo, known as MONUC, say their force, despite its size, is not enough to cover a country the size of Europe, with few roads and where marauding rebel and militia factions are preying on civilians on several fronts.

For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/

Additional reporting by David Lewis in Kinshasa, Writing by David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher; editing by Alistair Thomson.

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Photo: Children attend the burial of eight-month old Alexandrine Kabitsebangumi, who died from cholera, in a banana grove at Kibati, north of Goma in eastern Congo, November 12, 2008. Packed into squalid refugee camps or roaming in the bush, hundreds of thousands of Congolese children face hunger, disease, sexual abuse or recruitment by marauding armed factions, according to aid workers. Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly (DRC)



Photo: Raindrops cling to the fingertips of a dead Congolese government soldier lying on the road at the frontline near Kibati, north of Goma in eastern Congo, November 12, 2008. Two soldiers, both shot through the head, were killed in a sharp exchange of artillery, mortar, rocket and machine gun fire late on Tuesday a few kilometres from a refugee camp at Kibati sheltering 80,000 civilians displaced by violence. This is the tense frontline in the simmering war in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, where Tutsi rebels and government troops face each other just 200 metres apart from positions in the verdant bush and fields. Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly (DRC)

+ + + Rest In Peace + + +

DR Congo: BBC News In Pictures - Some IDPs are returning home saying not enough food or shelter for them in Goma

The UN says army troops have been looting and targeting civilians in villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The rebels have been seizing ground from the Congolese army and the fighting has hampered aid efforts.



Photo: Rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda says he will topple the government in Kinshasa unless it agrees to talk to him. It refuses, calling him a war criminal. (AFP/BBC BBC Nov 2008)



Photo: More than 250,000 people have been displaced by the recent violence, triggering a major humanitarian crisis belying the volcanic region's natural beauty. (AFP/BBC BBC Nov 2008)



Photo: Thousands of people have fled to the regional capital, Goma, which is defended by UN peacekeepers. (Getty Images/BBC BBC Nov 2008)



Photo: Aid agencies fear a cholera epidemic could break out if the fighting continues and people remain without proper sanitation. (AFP/BBC BBC) Nov 2008)



Photo: About 70,000 people are living in makeshift camps in Kibati just outside Goma. (AP/BBC BBC) Nov 2008)



Photo: Some people have been returning to their homes in rebel-held, despite the dangers, saying there is not enough food or shelter for them in Goma. (Getty Images/BBC Nov 2008.

DRC Goma: UN peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich says DRC troops had reportedly raped civilians near Kanyabayonga 10-11 Nov 2008

Tuesday, 11 November 2008 report by Anita Powell, Associated Press Writer - UN says Congolese troops raped, pillaged villages:

GOMA, Congo - Hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several villages in eastern Congo, raping women and pillaging homes as they pulled back ahead of a feared rebel advance, the U.N. reported Tuesday.

U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said the army troops had reportedly raped civilians near the town of Kanyabayonga in violent attacks that began overnight that lasted into Tuesday morning.

Kanyabayonga is 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the provincial capital, Goma.

Dietrich said 700 to 800 Congolese soldiers then fled Kanyabayonga and went on a rampage through several villages to the north.

"They looted vehicles, they looted some houses," Dietrich said by telephone from Kinshasa, the national capital.

A rare nighttime gunbattle erupted late Tuesday between rebels and the army just north of Goma, and the U.N. said it was trying to get the warring sides to move further apart. Mortars were also used during the nearly one-hour fight near Kibati, Dietrich said.

Kibati is six miles (10 kilometers) north of Goma and home to 75,000 people who have been repeatedly forced to flee fighting.

"There is a big tension because there are so many people there and it's so close to Goma," Dietrich said.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire so aid workers could urgently help "at least 100,000 refugees" cut off in rebel-held areas north of Goma.

"Because of the ongoing fighting, these people have received virtually no assistance. Their situation has grown increasingly desperate," Ban said.

The U.N. chief also said he was "very concerned by reports of targeted killings of civilians, looting and rape."

Ban said about 3,000 more U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and police were urgently needed to bolster the 17,000-strong U.N. force in Congo that has been unable to stop the fighting or halt the rebel advance.

The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to take up Ban's request.

Aid workers were trying to gain access to the towns of Rutshuru and Kiwanja, both 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Kanyabayonga in rebel-held territory, where they expected the need for food was urgent.

In normal times, the two towns have a combined population of more than 150,000. But aid workers said they have no idea how many people are there now. At least 250,000 people have been displaced by 10 weeks of fighting between army troops and rebels led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda.

A rebel spokesman said any aid workers who wanted to help civilians trapped on rebel-held territory would be safe.

"If there are NGOs who want to come to Rutshuru, they are welcome to come," rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said.

Congo's armed forces are notoriously ill-disciplined soldiers, historically better at looting than standing their ground. In recent days, some have been seen manning checkpoints drunk.

Dietrich said the U.N. flew helicopters over the ravaged area Tuesday, carried out foot patrols, and initiated an investigation into the violence with the Congolese army.

The fighting in eastern Congo is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 slaughter of at least 500,000 Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda. Nkunda says he is fighting to protect minority Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu militants who participated in the genocide before escaping to Congo.

A U.N. mission sent to Kiwanja, about 50 miles north of Goma, to investigate reports of civilian massacres there. It visited 11 burial sites that witnesses said contained 26 bodies of combatants and civilians, Ban's spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said.

Associated Press Writers Todd Pitman in Goma and John Helprin at the United Nations contributed to this report.