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Armed men from Rwanda attempted to enter the town of Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Wednesday, but were repelled by the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo, known as MONUC.
"The [armed men] opened fire one hundred meters from the port of Bukavu," Eliane Nabaa, a MONUC spokeswoman, told IRIN on Wednesday.
Bukavu is the provincial capital of the eastern province of South Kivu and sits on a peninsula in Lake Kivu, bordering Rwanda.
"A contingent of MONUC peacekeepers from Pakistan fired back at the assailants, after which they fled back in the direction of Rwanda," Nabaa said.
The group consisted of a dozen armed men, she added.
At a news conference on Wednesday in the capital, Kinshasa, MONUC's army chief of staff, Col Patrick Colas des Francs, said they were sending a mission to Kigali, Rwanda's capital, to investigate the attempted incursion.
He also said that MONUC officials were meeting with the Congo's military in Bukavu to consider ways of reinforcing security on the peninsula.
Wednesday's foiled attack in Bukavu follows claims by various sources, including the Congolese government, that Rwandan troops had entered the DRC.
In November, Rwanda President Paul Kagame threatened that his troops would enter the DRC to flush out Rwandan Hutu rebels there if the Congolese government and MONUC failed to disarm and repatriate them.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
