Armed men killed a UN observer outside the eastern Congolese town of Bukavu, where UN peacekeepers on Saturday contained renegade soldiers after several days of heavy clashes with the army.
"Our military observers were attacked by a group of armed men in which one was killed on the spot," said Sebastien Lapierre, a spokesman for the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUC.
Rival army factions battled in the streets of Bukavu with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers for nearly three days this week, killing at least seven civilians and five soldiers, according to UN and army officials.
Colonel Jules Mutebutsi, a former rebel commander at the center of the violence, had rejected a UN ultimatum to return to barracks by Saturday morning.
But UN troops, mainly from South Africa, established a frontline down Bukavu's main street and began shepherding groups of rebel fighters towards their base and UN controlled sites.
"Almost all of Colonel Mutebutsi's forces are now grouped at identified cantonment sites where they are being guarded by UN troops," Lapierre said.
He said the renegade soldiers were still armed but being prevented from moving around with their weapons.
Residents edged out on to the streets on Saturday, but most stores remained shut. The bodies of three dead fighters still lay on the ground, which was strewn with shattered glass from widespread looting.
A UN armored personnel carrier manned by Uruguayan soldiers was camped on the road crossing into Rwanda just outside Bukavu.
Thousands of refugees fled to nearby Rwanda after the fighting erupted late on Wednesday when Congolese soldiers tried to disarm guards loyal to Mutebutsi, who is officially now part of a single, national army. Several groups of former rebels have been reluctant to be incorporated fully into a new national army being formed under a peace plan meant to end Congo's five-year conflict.
Mutebutsi is a former commander in the Goma-based Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), the biggest rebel group backed by Rwanda during the war, a sprawling conflict which sucked in armies from half a dozen neighbors.
He said on Thursday he was defending himself after troops from the capital Kinshasa came to arrest him. His whereabouts were still unknown late on Saturday.
News of the observer's death was a blow for the UN's most expensive peacekeeping mission as the world body marked Saturday's International Day for UN Peacekeepers.
A group of four military observers was attacked some 40km north of Bukavu late on Friday by unidentified men. The other three UN observers had all returned safely by Saturday, although one was slightly injured, Lapierre said.
The dead observer's nationality was not being released until family members could be notified.
The peacekeeper was the 39th to die since MONUC first deployed in 1999.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS