The UN has accused Tutsi rebels and Congolese militias of war crimes over the systematic killing of civilians in the town of Kiwanja, as fighting in the east of the country continued to spread on Sunday.
UN peacekeepers reported ”heavy weapons clashes” around Ngungu, about 64km north-west of Goma, an area that has been fought over during the past two years. The UN said thousands of refugees had arrived at its base in the town.
Just north of Goma, Angolan troops backing Congolese forces helped push fighters of the Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, about a kilometre from the threatened town over the weekend. But Nkunda continued to consolidate his grip on the large areas of territory he has seized in recent weeks, including Kiwanja, where his forces systematically killed scores, possibly hundreds, of civilians last week.
The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, Alan Doss, condemned the ”targeted killings of civilians by armed groups”, principally Nkunda’s forces which murdered men, and some women, who remained in Kiwanja after the Tutsi rebels ordered everyone to leave.
Doss also accused the Mai Mai traditional militia of similar crimes against those it identified as supporters of Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) but apparently not on the same scale.
”We remind the different groups involved that international law is very clear on this — these are war crimes that we cannot tolerate,” he said.
Human Rights Watch said at least 50 people were murdered in Kiwanja as first the Mai Mai and then the CNDP seized the town. The Congolese Red Cross believes the final toll is closer to 200, but the total may never be known.
Doss defended the inaction of peacekeepers during the killings, saying there were only 120 UN soldiers in Kiwanja and they were pinned down by fighting.
”Sadly we can’t protect every person in the Kivus,” he said.
On Friday, a summit of regional leaders in Nairobi criticised the UN’s failure to protect civilian lives. The UN has 17 000 soldiers in DRC but they are spread across a country the size of western Europe. Some critics say they should be concentrated on areas of instability.
On Sunday the fighting spread to Ngungu, with the Mai Mai confronting the CNDP. The UN said it was able to arrange a ceasefire after about six hours of clashes.
The scale of Angolan military support for DRC is not clear but it appears to have emboldened the government’s army. However, it carries the risk of widening the conflict.
Angolan forces played a crucial role in stopping the advance of the second Rwandan invasion of DRC, in 1998. Rwanda denies that it continues to support Nkunda after backing him immediately after its invasion. But it may not stand by if the Angolan military swings the conflict against Nkunda while Hutu extremist rebels, born out of the forces that led the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, continue to operate unhindered from DRC.
DRC’s neighbours called for a ceasefire on Sunday to allow humanitarian assistance through the frontline, as aid agencies said they had been unable to help tens of thousands of people forced to move by the recent weeks of fighting. The UN said it did not know where most of them were after the CNDP herded people out of refugee camps and others fled at the sound of shooting.
Médecins sans Frontières reported an outbreak of cholera in a refugee camp of about 50 000 people near Goma. The aid group said it had seen 45 cases since Friday and warned that a shortage of latrines could lead to a more serious outbreak. – guardian.co.uk