"Our peacekeeping colleagues tell us that six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania, who were part of the UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC were killed yesterday in Beni territory in North Kivu," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. "This is the area where there is an Ebola outbreak and insecurity has been an obstacle to the response to the outbreak."
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The peacekeepers were killed during a joint operation carried out by the UN mission and the Congolese armed forces against the Allied Democratic (ADF) rebel group.
UN officials have warned for weeks that fighting in North Kivu was hampering an international response to the Ebola outbreak, which has infected around 300 people and killed nearly two-thirds of them, according to the Congolese Ministry of Public Health.