On Sunday in the Congolese town of Kasinidi, on the border with Uganda, a UN peacekeeping brigade was returning home from leave when it opened fire on a border crossing for “unexplained reasons and forced their way through,” causing “loss of life and serious injuries,” according to a statement by MONUSCO head Bintou Keita. She added that she was “shocked and dismayed” by the violence, and that the suspects had been arrested.
Video footage of the incident shows a Renault VAB six-wheeled armored personnel carrier and a truck stopped at a checkpoint as several men walk up to the gate yelling. After a few moments, the APC’s heavy machine gun opens fire in a series of short bursts that become longer, and people nearby scramble for cover before the APC and truck burst through the gate.
In a separate statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “outraged” and “saddened,” stressing “in the strongest terms the need to establish accountability for these events.
The nationality of the MONUSCO soldiers has not been revealed, but their governments have been notified, the UN said. Nearly 50 nations have contributed soldiers to MONUSCO’s 14,000-strong force.
The violence comes after days of violent protests further south in Goma, Butembo, and Beni, on the Rwandan border. In those anti-MONUSCO protests, demonstrators stormed and ransacked the MONUSCO headquarters, and at least 19 people were killed, including 3 UN peacekeeping soldiers. Dozens more have been injured.
There are at least 120 militant groups in eastern Congo, a region of dense jungles and mountains that is rich in natural resources. Many of the groups are ethnic-based, and the region has long been a hotbed of instability that has fueled many conflicts, including the colossal Congo Wars of the 1990s and 2000s, as well as the more recent fighting.
The DRC and Ugandan militaries are engaged with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Daesh-aligned* militant group in northern North Kivu, and the DRC is also fighting M23 in the province’s south, on the Rwandan border. M23 is a Tutsi-majority militia that Kinshasa has accused the Rwandan government of using as a proxy force.
Rwanda, in turn, has accused the DRC of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu Power group with connections to those who carried out the 1994 genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and Twa. There is evidence to support both claims, but both nations have denied the other’s accusations.
The situation in recent months has threatened open war between the DRC and Rwanda, but a tenuous peace process begun in Luanda, Angola, last month has held so far, even as the M23 rejects being confined by the deal, saying it is Congolese, not Rwandan.
*A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other nations