Security Council demands “immediate stop” to offensives

The UN Security Council on Wednesday expressed its deep frustration at renewed military offensives on several fronts in the DRC, and warned the combatants that the planned deployment of a 5,500-strong UN mission could not proceed amid renewed fighting. “Council members expressed their dismay at the new offensive launched in the province of Kasai, which resulted in the seizure of the town of Idumbe,” Ambassador Anwar Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, who holds the Council’s rotating presidency, said in a press statement. The statement also noted Council members’ deep concern about continued fighting in the provinces of Equateur, Katanga and Kivu, and reports of “widespread preparations being made for further military action, including training and significant rearmament.” Demanding that all parties “put an immediate stop to fighting”, council members emphasised that the UN’s second phase deployment could not be completed in the midst of military actions. “If it is not safe, if hostilities resume, we of course know from past experience that that’s no place to send peacekeepers,” said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Bernard Miyet, is scheduled to give the Security Council a more detailed briefing next Tuesday after his return from a recent fact-finding visit to the region.