Reports now emerge that United Nations peacekeepers killed eight civilians during an attack on their supply convoy in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the evening of Tuesday, February 7.

As reported, the UN troops were firing “warning shots”, which also wounded 28 people in the violence on Tuesday. Initial reports earlier indicated that three civilians were killed and a dozen others injured following an incident where four peacekeepers’ trucks were violently attacked while returning from a resupply mission north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

The UN mission had earlier reported that three people died when the peacekeepers, accompanied by Congolese soldiers, “tried to protect the convoy”.

But Lt. Gen. Constant Ndima, the governor’s spokesperson, on Wednesday, said: “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.”

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The incident followed protests in Goma, the capital of North Kivu, on Monday and Tuesday, against the East African regional force deployed there in November 2022 to support the regional efforts to restore peace in eastern DR Congo.

There have been various protests, in the past, against the presence of the UN mission in the country.

The Congolese accuse MONUSCO, one of the largest and most expensive – with an annual budget of over $1 billion – UN missions in the world which has been in the country since 1999 and fields about 20,000 peacekeepers, of failing to deal with the dozens of armed groups operating in the east of their country.

Of late, protestors, emboldened by their political and military leaders, are also increasingly threatening the regional force to leave the country if it does not fight the M23 rebels.

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Soon after the February 4, extra-ordinary EAC Summit of Heads of State concluded, in Bujumbura, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi was captured on video confronting the commander of the regional force, Gen. Jeff Nyagah, in the presence of the Kenyan officer’s Commander in Chief, President William Ruto.

A visibly threatening Tshisekedi told Gen. Nyagah not to favor the M23.

Tshisekedi told Gen. Nyagah to fight the rebels or risk the wrath of the Congolese population. 

“Don’t favour the M23! It would be a shame if the [angry] population attacked you. You came to help us to solve a problem, not to be part of it. Pay attention to this, communicate to the population,” Tshisekedi told the Kenyan General.

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The protestors also blocked roads in Goma and vandalised shops and churches belonging to members of the Congolese Tutsi community which has been, for long, victims of endless hate speech and ethnic violence.

The protests also followed the EAC Summit of Heads of State in Bujumbura, which supported dialogue and the political processes, something Kinshasa is totally against.

Eastern DR Congo is home to more than 130 local and foreign armed groups that pose a serious threat to security and peace in the region but Kinshasa only pays more attention to Congolese rebel group, M23. The three foreign armed groups wreaking havoc in DR Congo are FDLR, a genocidal militia force that was formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Uganda’s ADF, and the Résistance pour un État de droit, or RED-Tabara, from Burundi. The New Times