DR CONGO: UN and Congolese troops attack rebel bases in Congo's mountainous Virunga National Park

Record ID: 354789

  • Title: DR CONGO: UN and Congolese troops attack rebel bases in Congo's mountainous Virunga National Park
  • Date: 1st November 2005
  • Summary: MONUC SOLDIER WALKING PAST VILLAGERS
  • Embargoed: 16th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Reuters ID: LVAUVYSEKGDWXT7HN8EGHS02MTP
  • Story Text: U.N. and Congolese troops opened fire on rebel bases in a national park on Monday (October 31) to flush out fighters believed to be holed up in its mountains and jungles a month after a deadline for their pull-out expired. U.N. attack helicopters whirred overhead as armoured personnel carriers ploughed through forests in the Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of Congo at the start of a five-day offensive that prompted at least 15 rebels to surrender. Troops set fire to huts in several apparently deserted rebel camps dotted around the park, a World Heritage Site that is a diverse landscape of swamp, steppe, savannah, lava plains and soaring mountain peaks roamed by endangered gorillas.
    Lt. Col Mayank Awasthi, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in DRC, said the operation aims to secure Virunga Park which they have identified as a logistical training base for militia and Rwandan rebels. Awasthi said 500 U.N. troops and 2,000 Congolese soldiers were involved in the joint operation targeting about 5,000 Rwandan Hutu rebels and 3,000 Congolese Mai Mai militiamen whom experts estimate have pitched camp in Virunga park.
    About 1,000 Ugandan rebels are also believed by regional security officials to be in the region. Describing the operation Awasthi said, "We had a little resistance at the Muzinga camp, where there was a minor exchange of fire and then they broke contact and they wanted to run way and the fire was replied and as soon as we opened the fire they just broke contact and ran away into the forest. The search is on."
    Nearby villagers are grateful for the U.N. intervention. "We are so happy for this action, for a long time the different militias have come and taken what we have and kill the villagers. Many spend the nights outside their houses for security. We have now slept well for one week. There have been no more killings but the one problem is hunger because the militias took all that we had," said villager Nyirasinamenye Leonille.
    A Reuters reporter travelling with the troops saw two Congolese Mai Mai fighters, barefoot and wide-eyed with fear, emerge from thick jungle escorted by U.N. troops. "I was tired of the bush. Life in the jungle is unbearable," Sami Mumbili told Reuters, saying he wanted to be integrated into Congo's army. "They need to come out (of the forest)," added Mumbili. Rebel fighters in the park had pledged to leave Congo by Sept. 30 under an agreement reached in August between Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. However, very few of the foreign insurgents had returned home before the deadline, ignoring a barrage of appeals and threats from all three governments and the United Nations.
    The Rwandan Hutu rebels fled to Congo after helping to carry out the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed. Citing the presence of rebels opposing their governments, Rwanda and Uganda have invaded vast neighbour Congo twice in the past decade, sparking two wars. They have later withdrawn under peace deals that have including promises by Kinshasa that the rebels would be dealt with. Rwanda and Uganda have threatened to send their soldiers back into Congo to disarm the rebels if Kinshasa's fledgling army or U.N. peacekeepers failed to do so. A contingent of Congolese forces is expected to be deployed to the park to guard it against future rebel infiltration.
    Rwandan officials say the rebels often know about planned U.N. operations months in advance, giving them time to move to a new area before the sweep. Flying over Virunga, reporters saw that illegal logging had reduced the forest in many areas to charred black pits.
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