UN hunts DRC rebels who killed peacekeepers

BENI —The United Nations peacekeeping chief says the UN mission in DRC will pursue the Allied Democratic Forces rebels who killed 15 peacekeepers there earlier this month.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix made the announcement on Tuesday while visiting eastern Congo. He told peacekeepers that the UN will protect them and seek justice.

He said peacekeepers will reinforce their presence and weaponry in Semuliki to neutralise rebel groups in the region.

The December 7 attack was the deadliest single assault on a UN peacekeeping mission in nearly 25 years, killing 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers and at least five Congolese soldiers.

Uganda and Congo launched a joint military operation last week against the ADF rebels.

Human Rights Watch says the rebel group has killed more than 1 000 people in eastern Congo since October 2014.

Meanwhile, four people were killed and five injured late Monday when a freight train derailed in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), officials said.

The accident happened at the village of BenaKadiebue, 65km north of Kananga, the capital of Central Kasai province.

“The toll is still provisional, because the freight cars are lying on their side,” Francois Mutambue, a senior official with the national railway company at Kananga, told AFP on Tuesday.

“Sand deposits” on the track were to blame for the accident, he said.

Railways accidents in DRC are frequent and often deadly. Decrepit track and ageing locomotives are the most-cited causes.

On November 12, 35 people, many of them clandestine passengers, were killed when a freight train carrying 13 oil tankers plunged into a ravine in Lualaba province.

Monday’s accident was the third in Central Kasai this month.— News24.