Convoy was firing ‘warning shots’ which also wounded 28 people in North Kivu province, UN mission MONUSCO says.
Breaking News
United Nations peacekeepers have killed eight civilians during an attack on their supply convoy in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a military governor said.
The troops were firing “warning shots”, which also wounded 28 people in the violence on Tuesday, the governor of North Kivu province said.
The UN convoy was returning from a resupply mission north of Goma, the provincial capital, when assailants set four trucks on fire, the UN mission in the country, MONUSCO, said on Wednesday.
The attack took place at Kanyaruchinya, where thousands of displaced people live.
MONUSCO had said three people died when the peacekeepers, accompanied by Congolese soldiers, “tried to protect the convoy”.
“The MONUSCO soldiers in charge of security fired warning shots, which unfortunately caused the death of eight of our compatriots among the displaced and 28 wounded,” Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, the governor’s spokesman, said on Wednesday. He said an investigation would be carried out.
MONUSCO did not respond to the AFP news agency’s request for comment.
One of the largest and most expensive UN missions in the world, MONUSCO has been in the DRC since 1999 and fields about 16,000 peacekeepers.
Residents accuse it of failing to deal with the dozens of armed groups operating in the eastern DRC, including M23 rebels.
