U.N. Troops Come Under Fire in Northeastern Congo

By Dino Mahtani

KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters) - Armed militiamen opened fire on a U.N. boat convoy in northeastern Congo Wednesday, forcing the peacekeepers to abandon a mission checking reports that more than 100 people were massacred in the area last month.

The attack highlights the difficulties facing nearly 4,800 U.N. troops stationed in the northeast of the central African country, as they seek to pacify an isolated resource-rich region still ruled by rival ethnic militias.

Five speed boats escorted by U.N. troops were dispatched onto Lake Albert to investigate an alleged massacre in the lakeside town of Gobu, about 31 miles northeast of Bunia, headquarters for the U.N. troops in Ituri province.

"They were attacked by armed men seven kilometers south of Gobu. Our troops fired back and the battle lasted for fifteen minutes. After that the mission turned back," U.N. spokesman Leocadio Salmeron told Reuters by phone from Bunia.

"There were no casualties on our side, and as far as I know, none on their side either," he said.

U.N. officials had received survivor reports in late January that about 190 people had been hijacked on boats on Lake Albert by ethnic militiamen, who then murdered 100 men, before abducting the women and seizing the merchandise.

Since late January, several helicopter missions to Gobu have been canceled, because the terrain is too hilly to land on. The mission Wednesday was the first planned by boat.

U.N. troops took over from a French-led peacekeeping force in Bunia in September last year, with a mandate to pacify Ituri, racked by years of conflict between Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed ethnic Hema and Lendu militias.

The conflict in Ituri, a province roughly the size of Liberia, has claimed some 50,000 lives since 1999 and casts a shadow over Congo's new government, which officially declared a wider civil war over in July last year.

Despite survivor testimonies indicating Lendu fighters had been responsible for the reported killings at Gobu, the latest attack against U.N. troops may well have been executed by the main Hema militia, the UPC, U.N. officials said.

"We are not sure, but it is probable that where we got attacked was controlled by the UPC," said Salmeron.

Most of the 4,800 U.N. troops allocated to Ituri have not deployed further than a 38-mile radius around Bunia. In recent weeks, Ituri militias have slowed down deployments by stepping up their attacks against U.N. troops.