| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fighting feeds Congo genocide fear
KIGALI, Rwanda -- Fighters from rival communities clashed in the eastern Congolese town of Bunia Thursday, swelling the numbers of people fleeing violence and raising fears of possible genocide. "The streets of Bunia are deserted and most of the shops are shut down," an official of the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUC, told Reuters. "MONUC does not have enough food to feed the displaced people and there might be a lot of problems in the next few days," the official said by telephone from the town. Bunia, 50 miles from Uganda, and nearby areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo have suffered some of the worst atrocities in the mineral-rich country's war, which began when Uganda and Rwanda invaded in 1998 to back rebels fighting to topple the government in Kinshasa. Aid agencies say more than three million people have died in the conflict, mainly through war-related starvation and disease. Fighting intensified on Wednesday night and Thursday between members of the Lendu and Hema communities in and around Bunia, the official said. Thousands have escaped or tried to flee since fighting erupted at the weekend. Five hundred gathered at MONUC's Bunia office and about 1,000 were at the airport, the official said. "They are coming along with all their belongings, running from different parts of Bunia. Fighting is taking place at different places at different times," the official said. Uganda started withdrawing its remaining troops from Bunia at the end of April but said at the time it considered the United Nations would not be able to keep the peace in the area. Panicked Congolese -- fearing a power vacuum and limited role from U.N. peacekeepers will lead to new killing fields -- have been desperately trying to escape the country's northeast although most are unable to leave the region. Uganda was one of five nations neighboring Congo which were sucked into a war in the country and which withdrew forces as part of a peace deal. But Uganda has since sent troops back into the country to fight what it says were Ugandan dissidents training there. Uganda's most recent withdrawal is to be completed this week. Taking the place of the withdrawing Ugandans are 800 Uruguayan peacekeepers with a mandate only to protect United Nations personnel. Uganda says it offered to stay for a couple of more months to hand over control -- gradually and properly, it says -- to a U.N. force with a robust mandate. Human Rights Watch, based in the United States, said ethnic killings between Congo's Hema minority and Lendu majority have claimed at least 4,000 lives in the past eight months.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
