Nine UN peacekeepers killed in Congo

KINSHASA - Militiamen have killed nine United Nations Bangladeshi peacekeepers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in one of the worst attacks against UN troops in Africa.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly condemned the murders and called on Congo's transitional government to find the perpetrators and hold them accountable, his spokesman said.

UN sources in Congo said blue-helmeted soldiers had recovered their comrades' bodies after two patrols were ambushed and fired upon from all sides in the lawless Ituri district.

It was not immediately clear how many troops were on patrol but one UN source said that the remaining Bangladeshi soldiers had been rescued unscathed by 90 peacekeepers dispatched to the scene along with two Mi25 attack helicopters.

The United Nations has a 4,800-strong force in Ituri made up of four contingents from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco and Nepal. The total UN force in Congo numbers 16,000, making it the world body's biggest peacekeeping operation.

Ituri is one of Congo's worst trouble spots, where ethnic militias have killed 50,000 civilians since 1999 - the year the current UN force in the country, known by its French acronym MONUC, was established.

Friday's was the fourth deadliest attack against UN troops in Africa. The biggest loss of peacekeepers in a single day also happened in Congo, with the killing in 1961 of 44 Ghanaians from a UN force set up after independence from Belgium.

Twenty-three Pakistani blue helmets were murdered in Somalia in 1993; 10 Belgians were slaughtered in Rwanda a year later.

Bangladesh expressed shock at the death of its soldiers, who were part of a company protecting a refugee camp.

"The nation will always remember the supreme sacrifices made by the Bangladeshi peacekeepers. Arrangements are being made to bring home the dead as soon as possible," the defence ministry said in a statement.

"PREMEDITATED ATTACK"

A UN source said the patrols were attacked in Ndoki, 19 miles east of Ituri's main city of Bunia and an area controlled by a predominantly ethnic Lendu militia known as FNI.

It was not clear if the soldiers were all killed on the spot or if some of them were taken into the bush and murdered later.

"Lendus are not people that take hostages, they just kill," the source said. "It seems like a very well planned and executed ambush."

MONUC called the killings "premeditated" because of its recent drive to arrest and disarm militias in Ituri.

"This attack can only strengthen MONUC's resolve to continue its actions aiming at neutralizing the armed groups and protect the population," it said in a statement. A UN spokeswoman in Bunia, Rachel Eklou, said UN peacekeepers had carried out searches in the FNI-controlled town of Datule, just east of Bunia, on Thursday.

"We arrested 30 people, including 29 who we think were FNI militiamen. They have been transported to Bunia," she said.

In a separate incident highlighting the insecurity in Ituri, two Pakistani peacekeepers were wounded in a gunfight with Hema militiamen, the Lendu's ethnic rivals, about 12 miles north of Bunia on Thursday. One Hema fighter was killed.

Congo is struggling to recover from a wider five-year war that sucked in six neighboring states and, according to an international aid agency, killed nearly 4 million people.

Despite the size of the UN force in Ituri, attacks on civilians remain frequent. Clashes between militias during the last two months alone have displaced some 70,000 people.

- REUTERS