DEM.REP.OF CONGO: MANY REFUGEES AND WOUNDED AFTER ETHNIC VIOLENCE AROUND BUNIA IN THE ITURI REGION, BETWEEN THE HERNA AND LENDU TRIBES.
Record ID:
275312
DEM.REP.OF CONGO: MANY REFUGEES AND WOUNDED AFTER ETHNIC VIOLENCE AROUND BUNIA IN THE ITURI REGION, BETWEEN THE HERNA AND LENDU TRIBES.
- Title: DEM.REP.OF CONGO: MANY REFUGEES AND WOUNDED AFTER ETHNIC VIOLENCE AROUND BUNIA IN THE ITURI REGION, BETWEEN THE HERNA AND LENDU TRIBES.
- Date: 16th May 2003
- Summary: (W7) BUNIA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (MAY 16, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WS: PEOPLE IN CLINIC LYING ON THE FLOOR. 0.05 2. MV: A NURSE ATTENDING TO A WOUNDED MAN. 0.10 3. SCU: MAN WHOSE FINGERS WERE CUT OFF WEARING BANDAGES / CRANE UP: TO MANS FACE WITH DRESSING AROUND HIS THROAT. 0.16 4. MLV: WOMEN LYING ON THE FLOOR. 0.2
- Embargoed: 31st May 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BUNIA, ITURI PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
- City:
- Country: Congo, Democratic Republic of
- Reuters ID: LVA6HEE4Q5Y2IK098DARVZEX8HGL
- Story Text: On the day a ceasefire was signed to settle the Ituri
corner of Congo's war, the wounded of an upsurge of fighting
between rival ethnic groups lie chopped and bludgeoned on the
floor of a makeshift clinic ward.
Congolese President Joseph Kabila and members of
militia groups fighting for the town of Bunia in eastern Congo
signed a ceasefire in Tanzania on Friday (May 16), due to take
effect at midnight (2200 GMT).
The United Nations (U.N.) estimates that fighting in and
around Bunia between armed militias linked to the rival Hema
and Lendu tribes has killed hundreds of people in the past
week and driven tens of thousands of people from their homes.
The wounded were the victims of fighting between militias
linked to the Hema and the Lendu, old rivals in tribal land
disputes but also on occasion, residents say, proxies for
foreign combatants who have loomed large in Congo's war, such
as Uganda and Rwanda.
On the evidence of the clinic, the weapon of choice has
been the machete. Deep gashes and amputations cover the
wounded who lie, on rugs and thin mattresses on the floor.
"I'm alive, but I almost died," said one man. "They caught
me and cut me several times and shot at me as well. But I
survived, and I am being taken care of in the clinic now."
Old women and young children were not spared by the
massacre.
The fighting has wrought havoc in Congo's Ituri region in
the past 10 days, killing civilians and driving hundreds of
thousands of terrified people from their homes.
The United Nations has increased a force of peacekeepers
in the region to about 700 but the soldiers, deployed in Congo
to monitor a ceasefire in the country's wider war, have
neither the mandate nor the ability to quell Bunia's kind of
mayhem.
Ceasefires in the Democratic Republic of Congo are often
broken.
Other similar truces have been signed during the
course of war which has raged since 1998, but the fighting and
violent attacks have continued regardless.
Bunia was quiet on Friday (May 16), but there were
thousands of people around the town in desperate need of
shelter, food and water.
Tens of thousands have fled on foot through areas littered with
landmines and roving militias.
There is no reliable death toll from 10 days of violence.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said two
of its volunteers had been killed.
The head of the Hema-allied UPC rebel group which is in
control of much of Bunia, said the UPC would remain in the
town and did not plan to disarm.
Around 4,000 destitute people of Bunia, reeling from
militia mayhem making them refugees in their own country, have
sought shelter in a makeshift camp near the base of the United
Nations mission in Congo, known by its acronym MONUC.
''The fighting left many dead bodies all over town'', said
Jean-Paul Brazo, one of the displaced people. ''And they are
decaying now. Dogs are eating them. Why are the other
countries, the Europeans, just looking on? All these things
are happening and nobody is doing anything.''
Bunia, a settlement of 300,000 has become a ghost town in
the space of two weeks.
Fleeing the violence in their hometown, dozens of people
boarded planes heading towards the nearby town of Beni.
U.N. and missionary flights are the only traffic at Bunia
airport.
People in Bunia have greeted the latest ceasefire with
caution.
After meeting members of five militia groups in Tanzania,
Kabila signed an agreement binding all signatories to cease
hostilities, to demilitarise Bunia and to allow the deployment
of an international intervention force.
The agreement also pledged not to allow any more foreign involvement
in the fighting in Bunia.
Rwanda and Uganda have been accused of backing some of the
factions embroiled in the fighting, which started when Uganda
pulled its own troops out.
Neither country signed the agreement.
About three million people have died since Congo's war
began in 1998, mostly civilians killed by hunger or disease.
Other ceasefires have been signed during the course of the
war, but fighting and massive human rights abuses have
continued in the eastern Ituri region regardless.
Some of the many factions involved in the fighting set up
an Ituri pacification committee late last year specifically to
tackle the problem of this war-within-a-war, but it has done
little to stop massacres, rapes, looting and even cannibalism.
There is mounting pressure on the United Nations to send
in troops to stem the bloodshed.
There are already 700 U.N. troops on the ground, but they
have neither the mandate nor the manpower to stop the
fighting. France has said it is willing to send troops.
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