Street protests in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo has left three civilians dead and several others injured while United Nations troops in blue helmets were also injured.
This followed an altercation between the population of Nyiragongo that blocked the road to the MONUSCO (French acronym for the UN mission in the DRC) convoy from Kiwanja to Rutshuru to Goma since Monday. The Monusco trucks in a convoy were burnt down on Tuesday when the protests escalated into violent clashes.
Residents of Goma and North Kivu are frustrated with the UN mission and the East Africa Command for failing to contain and extinguish the M23 rebel movement which has terrorised them for years leaving millions displaced.
On Sunday (February 5th), a South African peacekeeper was killed and another seriously injured when their helicopter was fired upon in eastern DRC, a UN spokesman said. The aircraft came under fire around 3 p.m. (1200 GMT) as it headed for Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, where it eventually managed to land.
The South African army confirmed this information in the evening, specifying in a press release that the Onyx helicopter had come under fire, that “crew member [had] been killed, another wounded but managed to continue to direct the device to land.”
In a press release published on Sunday evening, Bintou Keita, head of the United Nations mission in the DRC (Monusco), said;
“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack against an aircraft bearing the United Nations emblem” and recalls that “attacks against blue helmets can constitute a war crime”.
According to Amadou Ba, one of the mission’s spokespersons, the origin of the shots is not yet known and their precise location remains to be determined.
On March 29, 2022, eight peacekeepers (six Pakistanis, one Russian, one Serb) were killed in the crash of their helicopter above a combat zone between the Congolese army and the M23 rebels.
