The United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo, or MONUSCO, on Tuesday, March 29, confirmed the death of eight peacekeepers onboard a helicopter that disappeared and clashed.

The bodies were found and brought back to Goma, the UN mission said in tweet.

"We offer our condolences to the govt and families of 6 peacekeepers from Pakistan, 2 from Russia and Serbia,” reads a MONUSCO tweet.

"The helicopter whose contact was lost had 8 soldiers on board this morning. It was on reconnaissance in the area of Tshanzu, southeast of Rutshuru in North Kivu Province, an area which has been the scene of recent fighting between M23 and FARDC.”

On Tuesday, the mission reported that a search and rescue operation was underway after a Puma helicopter lost contact with MONUSCO and crashed in North Kivu.

Speaking at the regular noon briefing, UN Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said there had been eight people on board, including six crew members – all from the Pakistani military – and two military personnel – one from Russia, and another from Serbia.

According to a UN statement, they had been on a reconnaissance mission in the area of Tshanzu, south-east of Rutshuru – the scene of recent clashes between Congolese forces and M23 rebels.

"An investigation is underway. We will update you as soon as more information becomes available,” Dujarric said.

"Our thoughts are obviously with the families and friends of those aboard the helicopter and all of our colleagues of the UN Mission of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

According to reports, their bodies were retrieved during a search and rescue operation launched by the UN mission. The DR Congo’s army is reported to have claimed the helicopter was shot down by M23 rebels. But the group denied this, instead claiming the Congolese military was responsible for the crash.

Envoy calls for a comprehensive strategy to address the root causes of conflict

Amid deteriorating security in the eastern part of the DR Congo, the top UN envoy in the country has called for a comprehensive political strategy to address the structural causes of the conflicts.

Bintou Keita, who heads MONUSCO, was briefing the Security Council, on Tuesday, on recent developments there.

She said that only three months into this year, nearly 2,300 civilian deaths had been recorded in the country’s eastern provinces. 

"This is proof of the inherent limits of only having security operations to resolve conflicts,” she said.

Keita said the security situation in the country’s east has deteriorated despite the joint military operations against armed groups by the Congolese military (FARDC), which was joined by the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).

She said civilian losses and displacement of populations have increased because of bloody reprisals by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militants.

In the past three months, there has been an alarming increase in activities by the M23 rebel movement in North Kivu. 

On Monday, M23 elements reportedly carried out attacks, targeting civilians in Rutshuru.

The M23 group was driven out of the DR Congo after a series of attacks in 2012 and 2013 and chased into neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda, but has since come back to wage attacks, including a similar incident in November 2021 when an armed group believed to be ex-M23 rebels, crossed into DR Congo, attacked and occupied the villages of Tshanzu and Runyoni. 

The two villages, Tshanzu and Runyoni, were the last strongholds of the M23 before they were chased by Congolese and UN forces into Uganda and Rwanda in 2013.

Earlier this week, fighting started late on Sunday when the M23 attacked two Congolese army positions, with Gen Sylvain Ekenge, spokesperson for the DR Congo North Kivu Province’s Governor, accusing the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) of supporting armed elements that attacked FARDC.

The Governor of Rwanda’s Western Province, François Habitegeko, refuted "the baseless accusations.”

Al Jazeera reported that Uganda’s army has also entered the fray and said it killed 14 fighters of the group near the border with the DRC on Tuesday.

"This evening they [M23] attacked us, they shelled the Ugandan side and some civilian houses were destroyed. Our forces responded and 14 rebels were killed, seven were taken prisoners of war,” Ugandan military spokesperson Brig Gen Felix Kulayigye, is quoted.