DRC

The UN Security Council should ensure that the UN mission in Congo (MONUSCO) has adequate and appropriate resources to protect civilians from attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and to avert election-related violence

Each and every peacekeeper is still needed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, aid agency Oxfam said today (28 May) as the United Nations Security Council renewed the mandate of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping force in the country.

The Congolese government’s military operation in eastern Congo, Kimia II, backed by UN peacekeepers and aimed at neutralizing the threat from a Rwandan Hutu militia group, the FDLR, has resulted in an unacceptable cost for the civilian population.

Since the start of military operations in January, more than 600 civilians have been killed and thousands of women and girls raped by armed rebel groups and government forces.

The military operations launched against the FDLR since early 2009 have been presented as a bid for the unity (Umoja Wetu) and peace (Kimia II) that have so long eluded eastern DRC1.

Rape, forced labor, reprisal attacks and torture are surging in eastern Congo as the result of the recent UN-backed military offensive, according to a new in-depth survey of nearly 600 villagers carried out by international aid agency Oxfam.

A coalition of 68 aid and human rights groups said the council should make clear to both the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo and the Congolese army that stronger measures to protect civilians are urgently needed during military operations against Rwandan militias.

While Oxfam recognizes that a solution is needed to halt appalling levels of human rights abuses committed by armed rebels, the answer cannot be action that knowingly increases levels of human suffering

According to UN figures, some 250,000 people in the provinces of North and South Kivu have been displaced since mid-January following a military operation targeting the FDLR rebel group.