MONUC welcomes arrival of Senegalese soldiers

The force commander of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), General Mountaga Diallo, on Wednesday welcomed the first batch of 130 Senegalese troops in Kananga, in the central province of Kasai Occidental. In a statement issued in Kinshasa, MONUC said the second half of the Senegalese contingent was expected to arrive on Friday, bringing the total to 260. Wednesday’s dispatch was the second of the Mission’s Guard Units in the country and the first deployment of blue helmets in a government-held area. Like all the UN Guard Units in the DRC, the mission of the Senegalese soldiers will be “to guard UN facilities, equipment and supplies”, MONUC said. The guards will enhance the ability of the mission’s military observers to carry out their primary task of monitoring and verifying the disengagement of the parties to the conflict, MONUC added. Some 200 Uruguayan soldiers have already been deployed to Kalemie, one of MONUC’s four sector headquarters. The plan also foresees the deployment next month of a second Senegalese Guard Unit of some 280 troops to Mbandaka and the arrival in May of a contingent of 200 Tunisian troops in Kinshasa to guard the mission’s main headquarters.