The chief of an eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) militia group has been arrested in connection with last week’s killing of nine United Nations peacekeepers, a source close to the DRC presidency said on Tuesday.
Floribert Ndjabu, leader of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), one of six militias operating in the Ituri region where the Bangladeshi troops were ambushed and killed on Friday, was detained in Kinshasa on Sunday, the source said.
In addition, two of his lieutenants, Goda Sukpa, the FNI’s former military commander, and Germain Katanga, who headed a branch of the group, have been placed under house arrest in Kinshasa’s Grand hotel, the source said.
”They are in their rooms, they cannot leave or communicate with the outside,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
Sukpa and Katanga were integrated into the DRC army and made generals in December.
”We received very precise information about the perpetrators and circumstances of the attack from [the UN] that allowed us to move quickly against the suspects,” the source said.
A military source, who also requested anonymity, said the three suspects are being interrogated by military prosecutors about information on the attack obtained from Ituri, where DRC Defence Minister Adolphe Onusumba is now visiting.
Four other militia leaders belonging to different Ituri groups have been placed under close surveillance at the Grand hotel but are not yet under house arrest, the source said.
The FNI officials, who control the zone in Ituri where Friday’s ambush took place, have denied any involvment in the killing of the UN peacekeepers, all Bangladeshis serving in the international UN mission in the DRC (Monuc).
News of the detentions came as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in the DRC announced that aid agencies operating in northern Ituri have suspended operations due to poor security there.
The suspension will affect about 50 000 of the displaced, according to Ocha, which said conditions in the region are such that aid groups can no longer safely distribute food, water and medical supplies.
Late on Monday, an international body monitoring the introduction of democracy in the DRC demanded the immediate arrest of six men, including Ndjabu, Sukpa and Katanga, who it said were behind the murders.
The panel, known as Ciat, also named members of another Ituri militia group, the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC).
It blamed the FNI and UPC for a resurgence in violence against civilians in Ituri, which has caused about 70 000 people to flee their homes in the past two months.
Ciat also called for the arrest of the FNI’s current military leader, Etienne Lona, as well as that of UPC chairperson Thomas Lubanga and UPC military chief Bosco Tanganda.
Lubanga is one of the four militia leaders under tight surveillance that the Grand hotel, according to the source close to the Presidency.
CIAT is ”seriously concerned by the illegal and criminal activities of various militias in Ituri and of their military and political leaders, including those recently integrated into the FARDC [the DRC army] and currently in Kinshasa”, it said in a statement.
Ciat includes the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — along with former colonial power Belgium, South Africa and Monuc. — Sapa-AFP