France hopes to lead UN troops into Congo

France has introduced a resolution seeking United Nations authorisation to deploy an international force to lawless north-eastern Congo.

France’s UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said he was confident the Security Council would approve the resolution in a vote tomorrow.

He said he expects the first troops to begin arriving in the town of Bunia by the middle of next week.

France will lead the battalion, which is expected to have about 1,000 troops from several European countries as well as Pakistan, South Africa and Nigeria.

Britain is considering a request to send troops.

The multinational force would remain until September 1, when a 1,500 strong Bangladesh-led battalion is expected to be deployed in Bunia and the surrounding Ituri region as part of the UN peacekeeping force in Congo.

The recent fighting in Ituri was sparked on May 7, when Uganda withdrew its more than 6,000 troops from in and around Bunia as part of a UN-brokered peace accord.

Rival Lendu and Hema tribal groups fought for control of the town in street battles and UN officials said nearly 400 bodies have been found.

UN deputy emergency relief co-ordinator Carolyn McAskie said the situation remains “extremely volatile”.

“We have seen the most horrible things in Bunia: women who have lost their arms and legs, children amputees, men chopped to bits, women raped.”

But she said “the real story” is that nobody knows what is happening outside Bunia in Ituri district, which has a population of three to four million and is inaccessible.

She said the situation in Bunia is not another genocide like the one in Rwanda in 1994, when more than 500,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed, but “there are elements reminiscent of a Rwanda situation.”

“In addition to this volatile cocktail of different rebel groups fighting each other, you have a number of leaders who are inciting ethnic hatred,” she said.

“The hate messages and the fact that the men, women and children are attacking each other brutally turns on the alarm bells and the comparisons in our minds.”