The leader of Congolese rebels warned UN forces blocking their way to the refugee-swollen city of Goma yesterday that they would open fire if the UN tried to prevent their takeover of the city.
About 800 peacekeepers from the UN’s MONUC force are the only obstacle to a complete rebel takeover of the strategic eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) city after government forces fled the rebel advance on Wednesday.
The UN Security Council has condemned the rebel assault, and begun moves to send troop reinforcements to Goma.
Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda said he wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with UN peacekeepers, but would not shirk a fight for the city if necessary.
“We will respect MONUC. We cannot engage them, but if they shoot at us, they are soldiers, we will have to defend ourselves,” he said in a telephone interview.
“MONUC cannot refuse me to go to Goma. They are incapable of securing the people of Goma so how can they refuse me to go there,” he said.
Nkunda’s forces declared a unilateral ceasefire on Wednesday after being kept about 20km from Goma by MONUC helicopter gunships.
UN forces had blocked tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting from entering Goma, a French aid group said yesterday.
“In Goma, tens of thousands of people fleeing the fighting are trapped at the gates of the city by MONUC,” Secours Catholique said.
The UNHCR said 45,000 displaced people had fled a camp outside the city on Wednesday, panicked by a rushed withdrawal of government forces.
The UN is meanwhile scrambling to bring in extra troops from other parts of eastern DRC.
“We are trying to bring additional troops to protect the civilians in Goma in the coming three to seven days,” UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said.
The 17,000-strong MONUC has roughly 6,000 troops deployed in Nord-Kivu to bolster weak government forces in their battle with disciplined Nkunda forces.
French Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert said that EU foreign ministers would meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss various options to bolster MONUC.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Wednesday that Paris backed sending an EU battle group of up to 1,500 troops to the DRC.
This follows a call by Congolese President Joseph Kabila for the dispatch of a “multinational force” to reinforce MONUC.
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said he was in favor of sending between 2,000 and 3,000 European troops to the conflict-hit area.
The city was gripped by chaos on Wednesday as government troops and residents scrambled to leave, panicked by the influx of some 20,000 refugees from further north.
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