“Logistics” assessed for battalion deployment

The UN reconnaissance team in Mbuji-Mayi was scheduled to return to Kinshasa on Wednesday and government clearance had already been received for the team to undertake a similar mission to Mbandaka in Equateur province on Thursday, a MONUC spokesman told IRIN. The team, composed of MONUC personnel and experts from UN headquarters, were primarily assessing “logistics”, including accommodation, the state of the airfields, river transport, communications facilities, and how easy it would be to resupply the sites, he said. Rebel-held Kindu and Kisangani - the two other proposed battalion bases for the 5,500 military observers and troops planned for MONUC’s phase II deployment - were already assessed by reconnaissance teams prior to the dispatch of UN Military Liaison Officers (MLOs) last year, the spokesman said on Wednesday.