United Nations peacekeepers expressed fears on Friday for tens of thousands of displaced people under threat in the latest conflict zone in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
”It’s an absolute necessity to avoid all collateral damage from the use of artillery,” Babacar Gaye, a Senegalese general from the UN mission in the war-ravaged country (Monuc), told journalists.
Gaye was speaking in Goma, capital of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, which has been rocked since late August by clashes between a 4 000-strong rebel force led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda and 20 000 army troops.
The fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the region since December last year.
The DRC army launched a major offensive on Monday against the rebels whose strongholds are in Kirolirwe and Kitchanga, about 50km to 70km from Goma.
A camp at Kirolirwe houses about 14 000 displaced, the majority of them Tutsis, while 18 000 more refugees are eking out an existence at a bigger camp in Kitchanga.
”The situation of populations in Kirolirwe is a major concern for us. We continue to stress this point with the army. We have reason to think we are being listened to,” said Gaye.
Monuc said it had called on Thursday on the governor of Nord-Kivu to urge the displaced to leave the combat zones.
”But the displacement of people is at the same time the responsibility of the displaced themselves, the humanitarian community and the soldiers. The three ought to agree and decide what to do,” Gaye said.
According to humanitarian and military sources, Nkunda has gone to the camp in Kirolirwe several times and urged people to stay put, as the fighting closes in.
The rebels are also continuing to recruit forcefully from the camp, the sources said.
But Nkunda on Friday condemned ”massive” and ”disproportionate” use of heavy weapons by government forces and that threatened civilians.
”The government forces have used completely disproportionate firepower, and the first and by far the greatest victims are the defenceless civilians,” a statement from Nkunda said.
”The operational command of the army is blackmailing people living in rebel territory, urging them to leave their homes under threat of heavy bombardment,” the cashiered general said.
The United States has urged Nkunda to surrender and go into exile to avoid a bloody showdown, while Kinshasa has called on the general to end his rebellion and reintegrate his men into the army.
Nkunda says he is defending local Tutsis against Hutu rebels from neighbouring Rwanda holed up in the DRC since a 1994 Rwandan genocide.
There have also been clashes involving local militia. — Sapa-AFP