UN confirms 70 killed in Ituri village

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) confirmed on Monday that Lendu militiamen had killed 70 people in the eastern Congolese village of Nkora, near Mahagi town, Ituri District, close to the Ugandan border. "I have reliable reports of the massacre from an independent source," Col Pieter Harmse, MONUC's spokesperson in Uganda, told IRIN in Kampala. "Basically, the Lendu fighters attacked the village itself, chopping up and killing pretty much all civilians - I don't know if they were all Hema or what ethnic group they were." He said the information had come from a Congolese farmer in the village, not from any member of armed belligerents in Ituri's war. The attack was the second by Lendu militiamen reported in less than three weeks. At the end of May, the Hema-dominated Parti pour l'unite et la sauvegarde de l'integrite du Congo (PUSIC), led by chief Kawa Panga Mandro, distributed photographs of some 250-300 dead unarmed civilians in the predominantly Hema town of Tchomia, on the shores of Lake Albert, which divides southern Ituri from neighbouring Uganda. Meanwhile, Bunia town was reported to be calm after an armed Lendu gang attacked French troops of a multinational force who were moving in convoy about six kilometres from the town centre on Saturday. "The situation is now under control again," Capt Frederick Solano, the French army spokesperson, told IRIN. "There was a fight between our troops and the Lendus. We opened fire, as we are mandated to do, to protect ourselves and repel the gunmen." He said no injuries occurred on the French side and that he did not know of casualties among the attackers. Solano said that the deployment of the multinational peace enforcement troops in Bunia was progressing as planned, despite of the skirmish. He said about 1,200 troops were mobilised between Entebbe and Bunia and that 600 of them were already in Bunia by early Monday. "We also have two more French 'Gazelle' attack helicopters coming in today, to increase our firepower," he said. At a news conference at Entebbe airport on Sunday, a UN Security Council team that had just ended its six-nation tour of Africa implored the countries in the Great Lakes region - particularly Uganda and Rwanda - to help restrain the various warring parties in eastern Congo's conflicts. The delegation's leader, French Permanent Representative to the UN Secretary Council Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, told Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni that states in Africa's Great Lakes region needed to play their part in preventing further fighting in Ituri. [For related report, go to www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34764] Uganda and Rwanda armed and trained both Lendu and Hema fighters in 1999 when they needed them to fight in their opposing proxy rebel factions, splintered from the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie, which had tried to unseat Congo's late President Laurent-Desire Kabila.