Bunia

The Democratic Republic of Congo began voting on Sunday in a presidential election run-off intended to end decades of war, pillage and kleptocracy that have left the huge country devastated and poor despite vast mineral riches. About 25-million people are registered to vote in the run-off between incumbent Joseph Kabila and former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba, the top two candidates in the first round held on July 30.

A dangerous humanitarian crisis is looming in the Democratic Republic of Congo with sharply increasing unrest in the Ituri region where nine United Nations soldiers were killed on Friday, the UN warned. Observers say attempts to block the disarming of local rebels could jeopardise the transitional process designed to bring peace to the vast central African state.

Girls who became child soldiers in the ethnic conflict in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) face rejection when they come home, a United Nations official has warned. ”The girls, who are no longer virgins, who even have children, are not marriageable,” said Christine Peduto, a UN expert on child protection.

The wheels of justice turn slowly in the battered Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) province of Ituri, rich in gold and diamonds but poor in the milk of human kindness in recent years. Ituri is a northeastern region of the DRC, shattered by inter-ethnic violence between rival tribal-based militia groups.

The top United Nations human rights envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo has called for the creation of a tribunal of national and international judges to try abuses committed in the country.

French soldiers deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) northeastern town of Bunia have heard distressing accounts of brutality from residents of surrounding villages, but their peacekeeping mandate is limited.

A political group drawn from the ethnic Lendu majority in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri region is to set up shop again in Bunia, two months after a rival ethnic faction shot its way into power there.

A French-led military security force was poised late on Tuesday morning to enforce its ultimatum that the streets of the rebel-held northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bunia be free of guns.

French troops exchanged fire on Sunday with gunmen in the volatile northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bunia and were targetted by a hand grenade that failed to explode, a spokesperson for their force said.

The French-led international force taking shape in the volatile northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bunia is still unable to stem a spate of abductions and killings there, its spokesperson said on Monday.

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.

A small boy of five stood on Bunia’s main street gravely handing his orange plastic assault rifle to an older boy of about 15 in camouflage trousers and a fuschia pink T-shirt, a real AK-47 slung across his chest.

Three hours on the ground was enough for a delegation of Security Council ambassadors to learn about the horrors of life in Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) north-eastern town of Bunia.

Ragged children sang and an elderly woman beamed toothlessly for the cameras as a convoy of French special forces rolled slowly through the Bunia suburb of Nyakasanza, the sun sparkling on their submachine guns.

South Africa said on Sunday it will provide troops for the international peacekeeping force set to deploy in turbulent northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where ethnic violence has killed hundreds in recent weeks.

United Nations investigators have arrived in the town of Bunia, where as many as 350 bodies have died in recent ethnic clashes.

A mass grave was discovered by aid workers clearing bodies from a troubled northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo town, bringing the number of people killed in tribal fighting to more than 300, a UN official said on Thursday.

Allegations of cannibalism once again circulated in the troubled northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with terrified witnesses describing the mutilation and eating of the dead during more than a week of tribal fighting that killed scores and forced thousands to flee.

Two observers from the UN Monuc mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who had gone missing in country’s troubled Ituri province, were ”savagely killed”, a Monuc representative said on Monday.

A commander of the United Nations force in the Democratic Republic of Congo dismissed reports that his troops had killed civilians in an operation which left at least 50 militia dead in the troubled northeastern region of Ituri. ”We don’t think there were any civilian casualties,” the deputy commander of the UN mission in DRC, General Patrick Cammaert, said late on Wednesday.