More European Union peacekeepers arrived in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday to boost a force deployed there to protect civilians from ethnic clashes that have left hundreds dead in recent months.
”In total 1 100 men have arrived, 500 are in Bunia and 600 in Entebbe (in neighbouring Uganda),” said the French-led force’s spokesman Xavier Pons.
The latest arrivals came after a French patrol was on Saturday shot at by militia fighters and returned fire near the flashpoint town of Bunia. There were no reports of injuries on either side.
The clash was the first confirmed occasion that the foreign troops — the first EU peacekeeping force to operate outside Europe — had engaged in fighting since they began deploying in the DRC on June 10.
The force has been mandated by the United Nations to protect civilians and aid workers in Bunia, who have found themselves trapped in fierce fighting between the majority Lendu and the minority Hema.
Some 50 000 people, mostly civilians, have died since 1999 as a result of fighting between the two groups.
The violence intensified in May, when the Hema seized control of Bunia following the pull-out of Ugandan soldiers from the town.
Since then hundreds of civilians there have died in ethnic massacres, triggering a decision by the UN and France to send in peacekeepers.
The 500 EU soldiers now in Bunia are almost exclusively French.
The mission, codenamed Operation Artemis, is due to reach full strength of 1 500 by mid-July with the arrival of Canadian and Belgian units via the Ugandan
city of Entebbe.
The deaths in the Ituri region are just a fraction of the estimated 2,5-million dead either directly in combat or indirectly through disease and malnutrition in the wider DRC conflict that began in 1998.
A peace deal signed in April was supposed to have ended the war in the mineral-rich but impoverished country. – Sapa-AFP