UN ‘greatly concerned’ by Katanga fighting

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative to the DRC, Kamel Morjane, on Wednesday denounced recent ceasefire violations in the country, and said they did not help continuing efforts to end the conflict. “At a moment when political and diplomatic initiatives are being made at all levels for the deployment of a UN military observer force, the ceasefire violations in the north of Katanga [province] are a cause of great concern,” Morjane’s spokesman Amadou Toure said in a statement issued in the DRC capital Kinshasa. The current situation - on which he did not expand, but which has seen Rwandan-backed rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) recapture the town of Pepa, close to Lake Tanganyika - complicated the roles of both Morjane and Annan, the spokesman added. The current fighting in Katanga was “useless”, and comprised a threat to regional stability, according to Morjane.