Slow start to disarmament in Ituri

Just seven combatants were disarmed on Monday, the first day of a US $10.5-million disarmament and reintegration programme for Ituri, a war-ravaged district in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC). By Wednesday the number had only risen to 10, an organizer said.

At the disarmament point at Mahagi, a town in Ituri’s northeast, 187 combatants and child solders from the rebel Forces populaires pour la démocratie au Congo (FPDC) did arrive, Peter Situma, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) transit site coordinator, on Thursday from Mahagi. But few of them presented weapons, a precondition for entering the transit sites.

Other Iturian armed groups failed to report. The reason, the leader of the rebel Front des nationalistes et intégrationnistes, Floribert Ndjabu Ngabu told IRIN, was that his fighters had no transport to get to the transit sites. The leader of the Forces Armées du Peuple Congolais, Jerome Kakwavu, said his fighters must be integrated into the new national army before they would disarm.

Leaders of Ituri’s various armed groups had agreed, in principle, to have some of their fighters hand in weapons and be reinserted into the community.

The joint UNDP/government disarmament and community reinsertion plan for Ituri, known as ‘the Plan DRC’, was officially launched on 1 September with funding from bilateral and multilateral donors and support from national and international NGOs, as well as UNICEF and the UN Mission in the DRC known as MONUC.

Four of the five transit sites opened to combatants on Monday. The fifth site, in the locality of Aveba, has been delayed due to security concerns.

Situma said most of the militiamen were waiting to see what would happen to those who did disarm. He said that this, and the fact that the fighters had to get to sites on foot, probably accounted for the small numbers so far.

He said that by Monday significantly more would start arriving at the transit sites. "Three to four militia companies are now moving toward our transit site at Mahagi," he said.

A militia company consists of 100 to 150 people.

Situma said there were 15,000 combatants in the district, among them some 6,000 child soldiers. When children reached the sites, he said, they were "separated immediately from the adults at the entrance of the camps and taken care of by child protection organisations" under the supervision of the UN Children's Fund.

On Monday, 12 of the FPDC combatants were identified as children and admitted to the camp. The rest were registered and asked to return when they had weapons to hand in.

Fighters who report to the transit sites and disarm are provided with humanitarian aid and what UNDP calls "entry kits," which contain clothing and household items. They then get temporary accommodation and three meals a day at the sites. The sites have recreational facilities and qualified counsellors.