Fresh clashes between rebels and government troops backed by UN forces and attack helicopters in eastern Congo left one peacekeeper dead Wednesday and three wounded.
The army and the MONUSCO peacekeeping force launched a joint operation against M23 rebels in the Kibati area, near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern mining hub of Goma.
“The operation is ongoing and we have just heard that one UN peacekeeper has been killed and three others have been wounded,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.
According to witnesses, shelling also killed one other person and wounded around 15 late Wednesday in a northern Goma neighbourhood.
The rebels, who accuse Kinshasa of reneging on a deal to start direct talks and have threatened to attack Goma, have used positions on nearby hills to launch artillery attacks on the city.
UN troops, including from the landmark new offensive intervention brigade, fired mortar shells and used attack helicopters in the battle.
“MONUSCO attack helicopters engaged the Kibati hills, while (UN) artillery and that of the (regular army) went into action against M23 positions south of the ‘Three Towers’,” spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai said in a statement.
The area is 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of Goma, where clashes between government forces and rebels broke out a week ago.
The dead peacekeeper was a Tanzanian soldier, the first casualty from the intervention brigade — a kind of special forces battalion within the peacekeeping force — set up this year to rid the region of rebel groups.
“I am outraged by today’s killing of a United Nations peacekeeper from Tanzania by the M23″, said Martin Kobler, head of the UN mission in DR Congo.
A statement from the M23 confirmed the government operation and said the Kibati zone was “heavily bombed” on Tuesday night.
MONUSCO took part in its first military action to back government troops at the weekend after the rebel group fired artillery shells on the edge of Goma, and two people were killed in shelling on Saturday.
It was unclear where the shelling originated.
Kobler said Wednesday that the brigade was fighting “to eliminate the dangers that come from the hills”.
“Military action is not a magic solution,” he warned.
“The aim is to restore the state’s authority over the whole of DR Congo,” he said, calling on the M23 and authorities to find a long-lasting solution with the help of the international community.
“We can’t guarantee the population’s security” but “we do what we can”, Kobler added.
Frustration from Goma residents at what they say is MONUSCO’s inability to protect them from the rebels escalated into a protest at the UN force’s base at the weekend, during which two people were killed.
Witnesses say UN peacekeepers from Uruguay opened fire on the crowd, claims that Montevideo denies.
After a two-month lull, fighting between the army and the M23 has erupted sporadically since mid-July in the chronically unstable region of North Kivu, which has the mining hub of Goma as its capital.
The M23 are former fighters in a Tutsi rebel group who were integrated into the regular army under a 2009 peace deal but mutinied in April last year.
The group briefly held Goma after an offensive in November before withdrawing on December 1.
UN peacekeeper killed in fresh DR Congo fighting
