Progress made in disarming armed groups in Ituri

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONOC, has announced that efforts to disarm combatants in the troubled northeast district of Ituri, are now succeeding.

The number of combatants disarming "has increased and is growing", MONUC spokesman Mamadou Bah said on Wednesday at a news conference in Kinshasa, the nation's capital.

According to MONUC 2,031 ex-combatants had handed in their guns by Tuesday, and Bah said 12,664 arms and ammunition had been collected.

Until recently, demobilisation was reportedly floundering. "Fighters who do want to disarm are being killed or molested if they attempt to go to the transit sites," according to a statement issued in November 2004 by the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Bah said the situation had changed because of a number of factors. "There is no doubt that operations by [MONUC] to destroy camps of militia groups which had committed gross human rights abuses played a role," he said. "Since these operations, particularly one at Ndrele, many militiamen have spontaneously presented themselves in the transit camps to be disarmed."

Bah also announced that MONUC peacekeepers had removed landmines and repaired the 144-km road linking the towns of Bunia, in Ituri District, and Beni in the neighbouring province of North Kivu. "The rehabilitation has allowed commercial traffic to restart thus the prices of goods in Bunia's market have dropped," he said.