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UN finds proof of hostile armed group in DR Congo but doesn't know origin

UN finds proof of hostile armed group in DR Congo but doesn't know origin

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Following helicopter and foot patrols in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations mission in the country has found evidence of hostilities by "an armed, organized but unknown military presence," but has not been able to identify it, the head of the mission's peacekeeping troops said today.

Speaking to journalists at their weekly briefing, Col. Patrick Colas des Francs said most of the evidence pointing to the presence of "several hundred armed soldiers" was concentrated in the triangle formed by Goma, Walikale and the south bank of Lake Edward and comprised burned villages and freshly evacuated bivouacs.

Some of the reports being verified by the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC) did not prove true. A team that went to the Mutombo area to check on reports of fighting found the civilian population living in peace, Colonel des Francs said.

Rwanda's President, Paul Kagame, had threatened last month to send troops against Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe and other rebel troops hiding in the DRC who were blamed for the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in their country, but he has since denied actually dispatching his soldiers. The rebels fled across the border to the DRC and have been accused of creating tensions there.

On peace-building in the DRC, MONUC spokesman Mamadou Bah said that some 880 local former militia combatants in Ituri had disarmed and prepared for reintegration into the country's military forces. MONUC had collected 4,332 weapons and munitions from them.

Meanwhile, the Independent Expert on human rights in the DRC, Titinga Frederic Pacere, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Erturk, and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of ethnic and racial intolerance, Doudou Diene, expressed deep concern "about information on the presence of Rwandan troops on the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

"The Independent Expert and the Special Rapporteurs urge all the parties concerned to abstain from the use of force and weapons, to put an end to violations of human rights and humanitarian rights, especially war crimes and crimes against humanity," they said in a joint statement, citing sexual violations against the civilian population and violations of the security and integrity of persons.

The experts called on the DRC Government and the international community to ensure that the country's transitional process continued.