United Nations peacekeepers killed in Congo

In the deadliest single attack on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in recent memory, rebels in eastern Congo killed at least 14 peacekeepers and wounded 53 others in an assault on their base that was launched at nightfall and went on for hours.

UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres expressed “outrage and utter heartbreak” and called the attack a war crime, urging Congolese authorities to swiftly investigate.

The peacekeepers killed were from Tanzania. At least five Congolese soldiers also were killed in the attack Thursday evening that has been blamed on one of the region’s deadliest rebel groups.

At least two peacekeepers remained missing, the UN said. More than 20 were evacuated for medical treatment in the regional capital, Goma.

It was not clear when military reinforcements arrived after the attack, the UN said.

Conditions in the region are “very, very challenging,” said UN peacekeeping chief Jean-pierre Lacroix, who said the attack followed a recent increase in activities by various armed groups. He called the assault a response to the UN mission’s own “increasingly robust posture.”

“We are disturbing them,” he said. “They do not like it.”

The peacekeeping base is about 45 kilometres rom the town of Beni, which has been repeatedly attacked by the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group, which is suspected in Thursday’s assault. The base is home to the UN mission’s rapid intervention force, which has a rare mandate to go on the offensive against armed groups in the vast, mineral-rich region.

The UN mission in Congo is the largest and most expensive in the world, and it has been a high-profile target of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts. Nearly 300 peacekeepers have been killed since the mission arrived in 1999, according to UN data.

Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, has seen immeasurable cruelty and greed as a result of its mineral resources. The nation suffered through one of the most brutal colonial reigns ever known before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship. Back- to- back civil wars later drew in a number of neighbouring countries.