United Nations pulls support for Congo

United Nations pulls support for Congo army claiming residents killed deliberately. The United Nations has pulled its support for army units in Democratic Republic of Congo it says has killed more than 60 ordinary people this year. A UN peacekeeping chief said today that the organisation believes Congo soldiers had deliberately killed 62 people.

Despite mounting complaints by human rights groups and others about abuses by soldiers and the high number of civilians caught up in the fighting the global humanitarian organistaion has, until now backed Joseph Kabila's forces in operations against Rwandan rebels. The UN has been helping the army tackle Rwandan Hutu rebels since January. UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he had information that the army had "clearly targeted” ordinary people. "According to our information, these civilians were clearly targeted in attacks by certain units of the (army)," Alain Le Roy told UN-sponsored Radio Okapi. He said that at least 62 people were killed by soldiers in eastern Congo between May and September. "We have decided that Congo's peacekeeping mission MONUC will immediately suspend its logistical and operational support to the army units implicated in these killings," Le Roy, who has been touring the region, said. Mr Le Roy said that the killings took place around the village of Lukweti in North Kivu province, about 62 miles north-west of Goma.

Human rights campaigners have claimed many times that ethnic Hutus were being killed by the Congolese army, and have accused the UN of doing little to stop the killings.More than 1000 people have been killed and 7,000 women and girls have been raped by rebels and soldiers since DR Congo and Rwanda launched a joint offensive in January, according to estimates from human rights groups. Another 900,000 people have been forced out of their homes, according to figures from Reuters news agency. A UN investigator said last month that the army had massacred refugees and gang-raped women at the Shalio camp in North Kivu in April this year. The Hutu rebel group, the FDLR, has been at the heart of years of unrest in the region. The rebels fled to the area in 1994 after being accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide and have since been fighting with the local Tutsi population and government troops.

The UN’s decision to withdraw its support for army units comes after days of intense fighting between government forces and FDLR rebels around Lukweti. The army has announced it is suspending all military operations around the village so the alleged deaths can be investigated, the BBC reported. The Democratic Republic of Congo has an extremely poor level of living as people suffer from being caught between warring 'rebels' and government forces.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children