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U.N. in push to end Congo violence
BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo (CNN) -- United Nations officials were meeting Friday with rebel leaders in the bloodied northeastern Congolese town of Bunia to try to quell ethnic violence that has recently claimed 300 lives. Most of the victims were civilians brutally killed this month in fighting between the rival Hema minority and Lendu majority for control of Bunia, the capital of the Ituri province. The U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUC, is investigating the deaths. The bodies were strewn about the town, many left in the streets and 32 others found in a water-tank near the old governor's residence. MONUC said many of the corpses had body parts missing. Rumors of militia cannibalism have been wafting around the town, but MONUC said it was not possible to know how the bodies were mutilated. Chaos has taken over the Ituri province since the pull-out of Ugandan troops, responding to last year's peace accord to end the war in the Congo that involved five other African nations and has been dubbed Africa's World War. "In towns like Bunia and areas further inland from Bukavu and lakeside... it is bandit country," said British journalist Tim Ewart, who is in the region. "Allegiances have shifted there in the war that's been going on for five, six years." The region is rich in diamonds, gold, and copper. Without a strong central government, the rebels are fighting to control those natural resources. "It really is a military 'free-for-all,'" said Ewart. "The pickings are rich, the terror that's being spread there is really beyond comprehension." MONUC has just over 700 Uruguayan troops in Bunia but they are limited in what they can do to help civilians. According to a U.N. peacekeeping official, the troops have a mandate to protect civilians "but don't have the capacity to intervene between warring parties to stop the conflict." The violence it not limited to Ituri province. In Bukavu, about 300 miles south of Bunia along the Rwandan border, civilians are reporting widespread rape as rebels control their town.
"At one of the main hospitals there, of the 250 patients in that hospital, 50 are women raped by soldiers," Ewart told CNN, from Bukavu. "At the girls' school we visited -- of the 150 pupils, 36 were the victims of rape by soldiers, some of them as young as eight." In Bunia, where Hema militias remain in control of the town, the rebel violence has prompted hundreds of residents to flock to the U.N.'s headquarters, according to a U.N. news release. They were told Thursday to leave the headquarters, and the nearly 400 people went to Bunia's airport, which is under U.N. control. MONUC continues to meet the Lendu and Hema militia leaders on a regular basis. During Friday's talks, they planned to discuss ways to contain the rebel troops to the Ituri region. The U.N. has received reports that the fighting has spread to the area of Aru, the northern part of Ituri. The U.N. is also distributing food to displaced families and investigating reports of recently laid anti-personnel mines in the region. Responding to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's call for an international force in the region, a French U.N. team toured the Ituri province this week in an effort to lay the groundwork for the deployment of troops, U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.
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