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After five years of bloodshed, the media briefly began paying attention to he greatest humanitarian disaster since Rwanda, which resulted in the UN security council sending a force of peace keepers that were criticised for having far from adequate manpower.
Congo has yet again disappeared from the news, but not because things are going well.
"The humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Friday accused the UN peacekeepers of failing to protect the civilian population in the Ituri region.
In a report entitled "Ituri: Broken Promises? A Pretence of Protection and Inadequate Assistance", MSF warned that despite the deployment of the peacekeeping troops in Bunia, "war is always close by".
MSF also protested against continued insecurity in and around the town of Bunia, a town in Ituri, saying that the current levels of protection and assistance to the people were far from enough.
The report criticised the French-led European forces in the area which "arrived too late for tens of thousands of people".
The humanitarian agency said that despite the peace process in Congo, which led to the inauguration of a new power-sharing government on 17 July, killings were continuing in other parts of the country's north-eastern region."
Some moderately good news:
"The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to keep its peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo for another year.
It has also agreed to increase the number of troops, observers and political officers by 2,100, taking the total number to 10,800.
The Security Council also gave peacekeepers a stronger mandate.
They had been allowed to defend themselves and UN facilities but now they will also be able to protect civilians and humanitarian workers who are under imminent threat of physical violence.
A French-led force has been trying to quell massacres in the Ituri region but it is due to leave in September."
It doesn't sound remotely adequate.
Posted by David Weman at August 5, 2003 07:38 PM | TrackBack"They had been allowed to defend themselves and UN facilities but now they will also be able to protect civilians and humanitarian workers who are under imminent threat of physical violence."
That's great, now they are useful at the least.
Posted by: FQuist at August 7, 2003 03:54 PM