FDLR looting mission foiled

The UN news service Wednesday revealed that peacekeepers in the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) had prevented suspected members of the FDLR from taking their loot after an attack on the South Kivu town of Mwenga, early Tuesday. FDLR (Democratic Force for the Liberation of Rwanda) militia group is composed of remnants of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR) and Interahamwe militia responsible for 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. According to reports, a town priest informed a UN official of the attack at about 1 a.m. when the attackers had entered three houses, looted household property and forced five people, including a woman, to carry the goods on their head. “But barely ten minutes after the MONUSCO troops were informed they went into action,” UN spokesperson, Farhan Haq, told a news briefing Wednesday, in New York.“The suspected FDLR troops abandoned their hostages and their loot and fled into the nearby forest.” In a related development, the UN troops in the eastern Congo are reported to have rescued six Congolese police officers kidnapped by Mai Mai rebels. MONUSCO’s early warning centre at the Ntoto Military Base in South Kivu province was initially informed on Saturday of the abduction of the local police chief, and five others. Ends

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FDLR looting mission foiled