MONUC helicopter shot at in eastern DRC

A helicopter used by the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) came under fire on Thursday from unidentified gunmen between Kalemie and Uvira in the rebel-held eastern DRC, MONUC spokesman Hamadoun Toure said in a statement. The aircraft, clearly marked with the UN insignia, had 14 gun shots as it flew above Biera village but the pilot managed to land safely in Kalemie, he said. There were no casualties. An official at MONUC told IRIN on Friday that the helicopter had gone to the area to drop eight military observers in all, at the towns of Bukavu and Uvira, in south Kivu, eastern DRC. It came under fire soon after it had dropped the last four at Uvira. Investigations were still going on, the official said. He said it was not easy to know who could have been behind the attack, " all we can say at the moment is that the area in general if under rebel control". The attack was the second on a UN helicopter since MONUC began deploying peacekeepers across the DRC. In October last year, rebels of the Gbadolite-based Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) fired on a UN helicopter near DRC's border with the Central African Republic (CAR). The two MONUC teams arrived in Kivu on Thursday, after the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) agreed to the deployment. The four man teams at Bukavu and Uvira will be the first permanent UN military observers in south Kivu, the DRC province with the highest level of guerilla fighting between occupying forces and insurgent groups. A report published by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in 2000 which estimated a death toll of some 1.6 million people in eastern DRC as a result of the war over 22 months, was based on five sample surveys of which three came from south Kivu. The other two samples came from Kisangani and Moba, also areas of heavy fighting. Sources at MONUC said that negotiations are under way for a further deployment of observers at Punia and Lubutu in Orientale Province.