Top UN envoy hails joint Ugandan, Congolese operation against rebels
As Ugandan troops began withdrawing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after a three-month joint operation to flush out a notorious rebel group, the United Nations’ top envoy in the country praised the cooperative effort, the world body’s mission there said today.
Marking the end of Operation Lightening and Thunder, meant to rout the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Alan Doss, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative and head of the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUC), warned, however, that the group remained a threat.
“Operations in the current phase are finished but there are more bands [of LRA] still here. There is work to be done above all in the matter of the protection of the civilian population,” Mr. Doss said at a ceremony yesterday attended by diplomats, ministers and military of the two countries.
Brutal attacks since last September by the LRA, notorious for abducting children as soldiers and sex slaves, have killed some 900 Congolese and displaced another 150,000.
While UN agencies and their partners are working – with the authorities, military forces in the area and MONUC – to expand humanitarian aid and step up efforts to protect the local population, they are facing several constraints, according to the Organization’s humanitarian coordinator, John Holmes.
These include the huge 40,000 square kilometre area where the LRA is hiding, their dispersal into several groups, the difficult terrain and isolated location, chronic lack of infrastructure, and the threat still posed by the rebels, including on major roads.
At yesterday’s ceremony, authorities of the DRC armed forces (FARDC) asked MONUC to continue its support in further efforts to clear out the pockets of LRA that remained.
“The Governments of the DRC and Uganda have very generously recognized the support of MONUC to the FARDC during this first phase,” Mr. Doss responded.
“Now, it’s necessary to turn toward the future and the next operations,” he said.