More than 40 human rights organisations have urged the UN to better equip its peacekeepers to protect civilians in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo.
|||Kinshasa - A group of 47 human rights bodies urged the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to better equip its peacekeepers to protect civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The UN mission, in its current form, is insufficiently prepared to respond to many challenges posed by ongoing violence from various groups, including in the eastern Kivu provinces, and upcoming presidential elections,” they said in a statement.
“The United Nations Security Council should ensure that the UN mission in Congo (MONUSCO) has adequate and appropriate resources to protect civilians from attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and to avert election-related violence.”
The grouping of Congolese and global rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, called for the creation of a monitoring unit to document election-related violence, recalling attacks and threats against election candidates, journalists and rights defenders during 2006 polls.
“MONUSCO should step up its role in the electoral process to minimise election-related violence and act swiftly to protect voters and candidates from attack,” the statement said.
“The UN cannot afford to be associated with fraudulent or violent elections in Congo.”
As for the northeast of the DRC, the groups said MONUSCO did not have enough resources or personnel to protect civilians against LRA attacks.
Long since driven out of Uganda where they first took up arms two decades ago, LRA rebels have sown terror across a vast region where the borders of Sudan, the DRC and the Central African Republic meet.
They are notorious for kidnapping boys to serve as child soldiers and girls as sex slaves.
The UN says the LRA has killed 2 000 people in the three countries since 2008 and displaced 400 000 others. - Sapa-AFP
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