British U.N. worker found hanged in Congo

KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters) -- A Briton working for the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's rebel-held third city of Kisangani was found hanged in his hotel room on Friday, a senior U.N. official said.

Kemal Morjane, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative to the Congo, declined to say whether Joseph Comerford had committed suicide or whether there was any evidence of foul play.

"Joseph Comerford, of the UNDP (U.N. Development Programme) Crisis Unit-Geneva, was found hanged in his hotel room in Kisangani," Morjane told a news conference.

Comerford arrived in the northern city on Monday as part of a two-member team to assess damages to be paid to the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda following bloody clashes in Kisangani between their forces in June.

Rwanda and Uganda back rival groups of rebels who have been fighting to topple President Laurent Kabila since August 1998. Rebels control most of the east and part of the north of Africa's third largest nation. Kabila is supported by troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.

A U.N. spokesman in New York said the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was launching an investigation into Comerford's death.

Since there were no embalming facilities in Kisangani, the United Nations intended transporting the body to a neighboring country as quickly as possible and then to Geneva.

Comerford was a member of an advance party sent to assess war damage and which has been in Kisangani since Wednesday. It was to be joined by a five-member team, led by Omar Bakhet, director of the UNDP's emergency response division, which arrived in Kinshasa, the capital, on Thursday.

The damage assessment was requested in a Security Council resolution adopted on June 16 which called on all parties to the many-sided conflict to cease hostilities and condemned fighting between Ugandan and Rwandan forces in Kisangani.

It said Uganda and Rwanda "should make reparations for the loss of life and the property damage they have inflicted on the civilian population in Kisangani" and asked Secretary-General Annan to "submit an assessment of the damage as a basis for such reparations."

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