UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “outraged” by the death of two people by the organization’s peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The incident took place this Sunday (31), at the Kasindi checkpoint, on the Ugandan border.
According to the United Nations, soldiers shot at the victims “for unexplained reasons”. Another 15 people were injured, some seriously, according to the local government.
A video shared on social media shows at least eight men advancing, on foot, towards the UN military’s car. Among the pedestrians, one wore the uniform of the police and the other of the country’s army.
Around, several people were filming the conversation between the two groups. After a few seconds, the blue helmets – as UN peacekeepers are called – appear to open fire. In the video released, however, it is not possible to detect the author of the shots.
In any case, MONUSCO (the French acronym for the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC) declared that the military responsible for the deaths had been identified and detained. They will be investigated by the United Nations and the African country.
Bintou Keita, the UN special representative in Congo, added that the military are not Congolese and that the organization has already contacted their countries of origin. She, however, did not mention their nationality.
Through his deputy spokesperson, Guterres said he was “saddened and dismayed” by the incident. He defended the arrest of those involved.
The Congolese government also condemned the actions of the UN military. Its spokesman, Patrick Muyaya, said in a statement that the group would be excluded from the peacekeeping forces.
This Sunday’s deaths further increase Congolese pressure on the United Nations. In recent days, violent protests have claimed the lives of at least 20 people, including three peacekeepers. Protesters criticize MONUSCO’s inability to stop the violence and attacks by hundreds of armed groups in the east of the country.
The mission has been in Congo since 1999, when it was still called Monuc (French for UN Mission in Congo). The United Nations now has more than 14,000 soldiers in the country, but it has been gradually withdrawing. The annual budget for peacekeepers in Congo is US$1 billion (R$5.17 billion).
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, visited the country on Saturday (30) to discuss the situation with local authorities. “We will study formulas so that we can avoid these incidents and, above all, work better together to achieve our goals”, he highlighted when commenting on the deaths that occurred in the protests.
