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British troops bound for Congo

Britain is to contribute about 100 troops to a multinational peace-keeping force being sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Government announced yesterday.

Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister, said five staff officers, an engineer detachment and a Hercules transport aircraft would be sent to the north-east of the country, where fighting between the rival Lendu and Hema ethnic groups has killed thousands.

Sweden, Canada and South Africa will also contribute to the French-led force of up to 1,500 soldiers going to Bunia, the centre of the fighting.

Mr Ingram told MPs: "There can be no military solution to the problems in the region. The multinational force is an interim measure, deployed to help the UN. It has a limited short-term mandate and will begin to withdraw when UN reinforcements arrive later in the summer." He said the operation - the European Union's first military commitment outside Europe - was "a practical expression of the common foreign and security policy".

Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, said: "No one underestimates the difficulty of the mission. But we are determined to succeed in helping the UN overcome the current humanitarian and security crisis in Bunia."

Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) young militians patrol the street of Bunia, east of Democratic Republic of Congo, close to the MONUC head quarter.

EU soldiers in Congo find their hands are tied

Ragged children sang and an elderly woman beamed toothlessly for the cameras as a convoy of French special forces rolled slowly through the Bunia suburb of Nyakasanza, the sun sparkling on their submachine guns.

The joy was not feigned. A massacre took place in Nyakasanza last month when the tribal war in Ituri province in north-east Congo spread into the town.

Militiamen of the Lendu tribe swept through the suburb looking for members of the smaller rival tribe, the Hema, to kill. Sixteen people, including two priests, were hiding in a Catholic church. They were led outside and hacked to pieces in the road.

In such scenes, painfully redolent of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, 500 people were butchered in Bunia last month, under the noses of 700 Uruguayan UN peacekeepers. With 55,000 dead in the three years of fighting in Ituri, the UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, said the slaughter could constitute genocide.

French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, wearing white suit at center, inspects the guard of honor made up of Uruguayan slodiers, Thursday, June 12, 2003, during the arrival of UN security council diplomats in Bunia, Congo. U.N. Security Council diplomats arrived in this northeastern Congolese town Thursday on a mission to relaunch a political process to end violence in the region.