27 civilians confirmed killed

A joint MSF/ICRC team in Kisangani has confirmed that 28 people were killed and 159 others wounded in the fighting between Rwandan and Ugandan forces in the city on Friday and Saturday, an MSF statement said. The statement, received by IRIN on Wednesday, said the joint team had visited 41 health centres and four hospitals in Kisangani during “a lull in the bombardments” on Sunday morning. It said 27 of those killed and 155 of those wounded were civilians, and the rest soldiers. The two warring parties had released between 300 and 400 bombs within 24 hours, and the MSF team in Kisangani now feared new bombardments and more civilian victims, the statement said. “MSF denounces a situation in which a whole population is hostage to a war,” it stated. MSF called on the international community to take all necessary measures to protect the civilian population - including by urgently deploying UN soldiers to Kisangani - and to put pressure on the warring parties.