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The head of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) has received assurances from the ethnic miltia group controlling Bunia and surrounding areas of Ituri District, in the northeast of the country, that humanitarian access to the region will be guaranteed.
Amos Namanga Ngongi said on Wednesday that the head of the UPC [Union des patriotes congolais], Thomas Lubanga, had told him he would no longer block the work of humanitarian organisations rescuing local populations in danger, and that he would, on the contrary, work with them.
Ngongi said he had also recieved assurances concerning the setting up of the Ituri Pacification Committee (IPC). "This morning I met Thomas Lubanga, who gave me his full assurance that he would participate in the pacification of Ituri," he said.
Lubanga and his milita group have been one of the main obstacles to the establishing the setting up of the Ituri Pacification Committee, planned since August when a peace agreement between the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, and his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni, was signed.
"Even President Joseph Kabila has accepted Museveni's proposition to start working on the IPC, either in Kampala or in Kinshasa, before going to finish it in Bunia," Ngongi added.
However, the precise start date for the IPC remains unclear.
[For more information go to the IRIN web special on Ituri]
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
