DRC: Five children injured in attack on Gemena

Five children were injured and two houses were completely destroyed on Saturday after government forces reportedly dropped four bombs on Gemena town, northwestern DRC. The general-secretary of the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), Olivier Kamitatu, told IRIN on Monday that the bombs were dropped some 500 m from where the MLC was holding a huge gathering to commemorate its second anniversary. “Two of the bombs exploded but two did not,” he explained. The planes which dropped the bombs came from Mbandaka, he said. “This was a clear case of the government targeting civilians and not the military,” Kamitatu observed, adding that Gemena is some 350 km from the frontline.

“It is not the first time Gemena has been attacked,” he said. “The most shocking thing is that the government chose to do this when there were thousands of people concentrated at this point with so many guests from other territories. Kamitatu added that residents of the town were “quite traumatised”. An official of the UN mission in DRC (MONUC) confirmed to IRIN that it had received information from its team in Gemena about the bombing, but was still waiting for details of the incident.