Posted on 04/04/2003 6:17:11 AM PST by LurkedLongEnough
Gangs of school children looted offices of the United Nations MONUC mission in two towns in the northern Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo -DRC, a UN spokesman said.
"Our offices in Kanyabayonga were put into a sack, completely looted, and they also looted our offices in Lubero, breaking MONUC vehicles," MONUC spokesman Hamadoun Toure told AFP Wednesday from the Congolese capital Kinshasa.
He said that the two incidents had been perpetrated by "children, schoolchildren", who numbered some 200 in Kanyabayonga, but added that MONUC was aware that they had been sent by other parties.
Toure said that people in the town of Beni, north of Kanyabayonga and Lubero, had also staged a protest march against the MONUC on Tuesday.
The three towns are under the control of the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML), a political and military group, with close ties to the Kinshasa government.
The looting of the UN offices came on the same day as parties involved in talks on the future of the DRC signed a final accord in South Africa's Sun City to end more than four years of fighting and set up a transitional government.
"According to Security Council resolution 1291 (2000) of 24 February 2000: MONUC consists of up to 5,537 military personnel, including up to 500 observers, or more, provided that the Secretary General determined that there was a need and that it could be accommodated within the overall force size and structure, and appropriate civilian support staff in the areas, inter alia, of human rights, humanitarian affairs, public information, child protection, political affairs, medical and administrative support. MONUC, in cooperation with the joint Military Commission (JMC), has the following mandate: ETC. ETC. ...
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