Kinshasa, July 6 (AFP): An UN soldier from India was killed in clashes between renegade soldiers and DR Congo troops on the border with Uganda, the UN said today as the mutineers took a key border post.
The UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) said the Indian peacekeeper, who was from the 13 Sikh Light Infantry battalion, was fatally wounded by shrapnel during the fighting. “It wasn’t a direct hit. He died from his wounds,” MONUSCO spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai said.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has expressed deep regret over the soldier’s death. “The secretary-general deeply regrets the death of a MONUSCO peacekeeper from India in Bunagana,” a statement from the UN chief’s spokesperson said.
The DR Congo’s forces yesterday launched an offensive to rout the mutinous armed troops known as M23 near the Virunga national park which is home to one of the biggest populations of mountain gorillas.
But the M23 repulsed loyalist forces and the mutineers took the border town of Bunagana around 0930IST, M23 lieutenant colonel Vianney Kazarama said.
“The mutineers took control of the entire town. The entire population and the (Congolese) troops are in Uganda,” a police source in the area told AFP separately. A Bunagana resident said: “It’s over, the place has been occupied by the rebels. We’re all crammed in on the Ugandan side.”
The spokesman for the rebels said Bunagana was being evacuated. “M23 police will stay there,” he added. Bunagana is about 10km from the positions of mutineers who have gathered in the hills in the southeast of Virunga national park since May.
