As Renegade leader Laurent Nkunda continues to lead his troop of Tutsi rebels across Congo, threatening the peace and stability of the country, the Congolese army and UN military forces have joined forces to march the Nkunda siege with fire for fire.
Laurent Nkunda’s fighters have targeted and conquered the strategic village of Kibumba and are headed for Goma, the region’s capital where thousands of civilians have fled.
UN forces have been using attack helicopters and tanks to try to stop the rebel advance, but they say the rebels work in small groups, making them difficult to locate and repulse.
Head of the UN mission in DR Congo Alan Doss,(Monuc), told the BBC his forces were stretched to the limit and needed urgent reinforcements. ‘The UN troops would do their utmost to stop major towns in the region from falling to the Tutsi rebels under Gen Nkunda. We are going to remain there, and we are going to act against any effort to take over a city or major population centre by force,’ he said from Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.
Despite the UN Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire and issuing a statement in which it ‘strongly condemned the offensive operations’ against its peacekeepers.
Alan Doss has however called for the deployment of more troops. The UN peacekeeping forces have 17,000 troops in DR Congo – the largest peacekeeping force in the world – but has come under criticism from residents in the east of the country for being unable to protect them.
The head of UN peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, briefed the Security Council, and said the appeal for more troops had been heard clearly by all member states.
