Gunmen fire on UN offices in Congo after demonstration
Leocadio Salmeron, a spokesman for the UN mission in Congo, said UN troops fired into the air to disperse a crowd of demonstrators outside the office and no one was hurt.
But Etienne Membe Ngona, the deputy security chief for the Union of Congolese Patriots, or UPC, said one person was killed and three others wounded by the UN troops.
The assailants were hiding among the demonstrators protesting the detention of Floribert Kisembo, UPC chief of staff, and Rafiki Saba, the security chief of the same main Hema tribal faction, Mr Salmeron said by telephone from Bunia.
The UPC commanders were detained on Monday after UN troops found four AK-47 assault rifles, several rounds of ammunition, six anti-personnel mines and a hand grenade buried on the grounds of the home of UPC head Thomas Lubanga, Mr Salmeron said.
Lubanga is in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, 1,056 miles southwest of Bunia, the main town in restive Ituri province.
The arms and ammunition were discovered after the UN ordered armed groups in Bunia to hand in weapons, including those held by bodyguards of militia leaders.
The UN troops are pushing to secure Bunia before deploying in the rest of the province the size of Belgium. On September 1, the UN force replaced a French-led emergency force that largely stabilised the town after arriving in June to stem fighting between the UPC and a rival Lendu tribal faction.
UPC supporters clashed sporadically with UN troops on Monday following the weapons discovery and the subsequent detention of key commanders, Mr Salmeron said, adding that at least two civilians were wounded.
Mr Ngona said, however, that one person had been killed and seven others wounded in the clashes between UN troops and angry residents protesting the arrest of the UPC commanders.
The Hema and Lendu have traditionally clashed over land and resources in the resource-rich Ituri. That fighting became more deadly in 1999 when they were used as proxies in the civil war.
