At least two people died and 14 more were injured by shots fired by troops from the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) against the population in the town of Kasindi, in North Kivu, on the border with Uganda, for Reasons still under investigation.
A spokesman for civil society in the city of Beni reported the balance of victims and has assured that the “blue helmets” prevented demonstrators from entering Congolese territory, according to the RFI radio station. MONUSCO confirmed the incident and assured that up to 67 soldiers involved in this incident have been arrested. The United Nations special representative in the country, Bintou Keita, explained that the peacekeepers “opened their way with gunfire for inexplicable reasons” and caused “loss of lives and serious injuries.” Keita declared himself “deeply shocked and dismayed by this serious incident”, and presented “his deepest condolences to the families of the victims” before reporting that the ‘blue helmets’ involved in the incident, and whose nationality has not been given know, they have been arrested, according to the official note collected by the Congolese news portal Actualité.
“Contacts have also been established with the country of origin of these soldiers so that legal proceedings can be initiated urgently with the participation of victims and witnesses, so that exemplary sanctions can be taken as soon as possible,” Keita added.
It should be remembered that since the beginning of last week, the population of eastern DRC has staged several demonstrations to demand the departure of MONUSCO because, according to the participants in the protests, it has failed in its mission to restore peace in the country.
The unrest began on Monday when violent protesters stormed a MONUSCO building in the city of Goma, in North Kivu province. At least 22 people died in the protests, which later spread to several cities in the country.
MONUSCO has been stationed in northeast Congo for more than 20 years, in an attempt to shore up peace in the country despite the presence of some 130 different armed groups vying for control of the DRC’s vast natural resources, which they include copper, cobalt, gold and diamonds, particularly in the extremely violent provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. Precisely, the head of UN peace operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, is right now in the country’s capital, Kinshasa, with the intention of smoothing things over with the Congolese authorities, as he did in Mali a week.
Uruguayan troops “are fine”
“So far the situation remains tense but stable in Goma,” Colonel Pedro Gómez, head of the Army’s Department of Institutional Communication, told Diario La R. “There was a major incident in Beni, 300km to the north involving the Tanzanian Battalion,” he added. However, “our troops are doing well, holding security positions in Goma and Munigi (15 km north of Goma)”.
