Under international pressure, Uganda is pulling thousands of troops from Ituri, trailing tens of thousands of scared civilians in their wake, amid warnings that the UN Observer Mission (MUNOC) peacekeepers moving into the region are incapable of preventing further massacres.
"The Security Council has given MONUC a mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence,'" said Alison Des Forges, senior adviser to the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "But to do that, it must have enough troops and equipment".
Ituri remains a violent and volatile part of the DRC in the wake of a four-year war which at its height embroiled half a dozen nations including Uganda, and is estimated to have killed, directly or indirectly, at least three-million people.
Various politico-military groups are fanning the flames of a long-running and increasingly deadly feud between rival ethnic communities.
More than 800 UN peacekeeping forces began to deploy last month in Ituri province, as part of efforts to restore peace in the DRC.
Human Rights Watch called on the Security Council and the UN peacekeeping office to urgently send MONUC reinforcements to Ituri from elsewhere in the DRC.
"People in Ituri can't wait months for help to come," Des Forges said. "They're looking to the UN and to the rest of us for protection now". – Sapa.
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