GOMA, DR Congo, Nov 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The UN peacekeeping mission in
DR Congo said it was launching a probe after gathering evidence that its
troops may have killed a young demonstrator, as a fresh protest unfolded in
the east of the country on Wednesday.
“The elements that we have indicate that it was Blue Helmets who were
responsible for the death of this young man,” a spokesman for the mission,
MONUSCO, told AFP.
The death occurred on Tuesday in the eastern city of Beni where angry
locals have been demonstrating against MONUSCO, accusing it of failing to
protect them against a notorious militia.
In a statement, MONUSCO quoted mission chief Leila Zerrougui as saying
the man “was reportedly killed in an exchange with Blue Helmets as he was
about to throw a petrol bomb”.
Separately, a student was injured and 10 other people arrested on
Wednesday as Congolese police broke up a demonstration outside the university
in Goma, one of two cities in the province of North Kivu where anger has
boiled over.
Dozens of civilians in and around the town of Beni have been killed by a
shadowy group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), since DR Congo’s army
launched an offensive against it on October 30.
The mounting toll has led people to take to the streets, accusing the
authorities and MONUSCO of inaction.
On Monday, a crowd stormed one of the two UN camps near Beni and set
fire to one of its offices.
Six people have been killed in the protests since Monday.
“Our demonstration is patriotic. MONUSCO is standing on the sidelines as
the massacres unfold, when its chief mission is to protect civilians,” one of
the demonstrators in Wednesday’s protest, law student Fiston Muhindo, told
AFP.
“They have to go. MONUSCO is serving no purpose,” said fellow law
student Junior Mastaki, adding that the Congolese authorities were
“incapable” of protecting the public.
– MONUSCO problems –
Eighty-one people in the Beni region have been killed since November 5,
according to a not-for-profit organisation, the Congo Research Group (CRG).
It says the ADF — a group of Ugandan origin that has plagued eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo since the mid-1990s — has killed more than a
thousand civilians since October 2014.
MONUSCO, one of the biggest UN peacekeeping operations in the world,
today comprises more than 16,500 military personnel and observers, 1,300
police and at least 4,000 civilians.
But it has struggled to make headway in a vast country beset by armed
groups as well as entrenched poverty and poor governance.
Responding to criticism of inaction, it has pointed out that troops are
unable to deploy in combat without the approval of the host country and in
coordination with national forces.
On Monday, the Congolese armed forces told AFP that they had taken “all
of (ADF’s) strongholds and headquarters” in the forests around Beni.
The same day, the president’s office announced the DRC and UN
peacekeepers would launch “joint operations” to beef up security in Beni, and
the Congolese army would establish an “advance headquarters” in the town.