UNITED NATIONS, October 27 (RIA Novosti) — Urgent action is needed from UN peacekeepers in connection with the renewed killings in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN envoy to the country Martin Kobler told the Security Council on Monday.
"Presence without action, in the face of violence, undermines our credibility," Kobler said.
"Between October 2 and 17, in villages in and around Beni, Allied Democratic Forces combatants brutally massacred over 80 civilians, mostly women and children," he told the Security Council.
"They used machetes to mutilate the bodies of their victims to instill fear and to warn the living not to help Government forces eradicate them."
Regarding the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group, Kobler said that "they have two months and six days left to disarm, unconditionally, and to go to Kisangani transit camp as envisioned by the Government of the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], or leave the country. On January 2, there can be no excuse for delay. The credibility of the UN, the Congolese Government and the region are at stake."
On the expulsion of the head of the UN's Joint Human Rights Office Scott Campbell, Kobler said that he "asked the Government [of Congo] to reconsider this decision."
The Democratic Republic of Congo ordered to expel Campbell, director of the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in DRC, on October 16. The expulsion followed the release of the UN report on Operation Likofi that was set up to combat criminal delinquency in Kinshasa and took place from November 15, 2013 to February 15, 2014.
The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda is a Rwandan Hutu nationalist rebel group active in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2000.
October 2 marked the half-way point of the six-month time frame for the voluntary surrender of the FDLR as set out by the joint International Conference of the Great Lakes Region and Southern African Development Community meeting of Ministers of Defense on July 2.
