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DRC: Top UN, US and EU officials condemn "terrorist" attacks on refugees
Fri. June 06, 2008 09:13 am.- By Bonny Apunyu. -
(SomaliNet) DR Congo's top UN, US and EU officials condemned on Thursday "terrorist" attacks on refugees in the east of the country blamed on Rwandan Hutu militia, in which nine people were reported killed.
According to the UN refugee agency in Geneva, the victims of the attack on the Kinyandoni camp included two children, and scores were injured.
The camp at DRC’s Kinyandoni area holds more than 5 000 people who have fled the almost constant fighting in the region over the last few years.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special representative Alan Doss, and his EU and US counterparts in the region, Roeland van de Geer and Tim Shortley, said in a joint statement that Wednesday's attack counted as a war crime.
They deplored attempts to "thwart efforts deployed by Congolese authorities, helped by ... the international community," to restore state control in areas run by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The UN and other aid agencies are now suspending operations in the area.
"We are shocked and alarmed by the fact that the displaced people, already victims of the fighting in 2007, were directly targeted. The attackers rampaged through the camp, killing and pillaging," said Marjon Kamara, head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Africa Bureau.
The camp's inhabitants had identified their attackers as members of the FDLR, said Dominique Bofondo, the regional administrator in Rutshuru, 70 kilometres north of the regional capital Goma.
"These rebels have been harassing the population for months now, raping women and pillaging people's goods in the region," he said.
The FDLR comprises some 6 000 Rwandan Hutus who fled into DR Congo following the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis by Hutus in 1994. They are seen as one of the main threats to peace in the country's restive eastern region.
Diplomatic and military pressure to disarm and disband the rebels has mounted recently under the 2007 Nairobi process, which was launched by DR Congo and Rwanda with EU, US and UN backing.
The international officials noted that such attacks usually happen "each time pressure mounts to put an end to their presence and their illegal activities on Congolese soil".
However the FDLR denied responsibility in a statement signed by its leader Callixte Mbarushimana, dated from Paris and sent to AFP in Nairobi.
It condemned the attack and called for the UN to set up an inquiry to "determine the identity of these ignoble crimes and bring them to justice."
The group accused the UN mission in DR Congo of "pointing the finger at the FDLR every time exactions are committed in the Kivu region without making any sort of investigation."
The UNHCR said two workers from the non-governmental group Saving Lives through Alternative Options (SLAO) were among those wounded.
It said that the attack began when "several armed men stormed SLAO's office in the camp and robbed staff of mobile telephones and cash.
"As they left the premises, the rebels started shooting indiscriminately at people in the camp, including a group of playing children," the statement issued in Geneva said.
A camp official, Jean Reberaho, said the attack happened when an election was taking place to vote in new representatives.
"We were in the middle of the vote ... a gang under Colonel Soki Musohoke, and FDLR dissident, entered the camp and started shooting directly at people," he said.
"They had a small drum, and were beating it and firing and shouting in time with the rhythm," he added.
UNHCR condemned the attack and said it was evacuating staff and suspending operations in the Ruthsuru area of Nord-Kivu province, adding that all other aid agencies had also decided to pull out of the area.
"We need a lasting peace in North Kivu as there are hundreds of thousands of displaced people in need of shelter, protection and solutions," it said.
On Thursday four of the dead were buried under a tree in the camp, accompanied by wails of "There is no peace in this world, only suffering, disease and death," by mourning camp-dwellers. - Sapa-AFP
News Category: Africa
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