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MONUC disarms 16 more former Rwandan soldiers

    NAIROBI

    UN peacekeepers have disarmed 16 more ex-Rwandan army (ex-FAR) soldiers in Beni, North Kivu Province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman of the UN Mission in the DRC, MONUC, said on Wednesday.

    Toure told reporters in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, that 19 of 44 people the Ugandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML) had brought to Beni proved to be combatants, three of them Congolese and the rest Rwandans. "The remaining 25 were non-combatants, women and children," Toure said.

    He added that what remained was to work out ways with the Rwandan government for the eventual repatriation of the disarmed soldiers.

    The RCD-ML authorities said the 16 ex-FAR soldiers had not been taking part in the war in the DRC. "They had fled a sweep by the RCD-Goma and their Rwandan allies near the RCD-ML zone of control," Adrien Bokele, the commissar in the office of the RCD-ML "presidency", said.

    The 16 Rwandans, who were disarmed on Wednesday, brings to 1,800 the number of ex-FAR soldiers MONUC has disarmed and demobilised.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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