According to a military governor, eight civilians were killed by UN troops during an attack on their supply truck in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The army was firing “warning bullets,” injuring 28 civilians in the fighting on Tuesday, according to the governor of North Kivu province.
The UN convoy was returning from a resupply operation north of Goma, the provincial capital, when gunmen set four trucks on fire, according to MONUSCO, the UN mission in the country.
The attack occurred in Kanyaruchinya, which is home to thousands of displaced persons.
MONUSCO had said three persons killed after the peacekeepers, joined by Congolese military, “tried to safeguard the convoy”.
“The MONUSCO soldiers in charge of security fired warning shots, which unfortunately caused the death of eight of our compatriots among the displaced and 28 wounded,” Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, the governor’s spokesman, said on Wednesday. He said an investigation would be carried out.
MONUSCO did not react to a request for comment from the AFP news agency.
MONUSCO, one of the world’s largest and most expensive UN missions, has been in the DRC since 1999 and employs approximately 16,000 personnel.
Residents accuse it of failing to cope with the dozens of armed organizations operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, including the M23 rebels.
Despite a peace roadmap hashed out in Angola last July and the deployment of an East African Community force in November, the group has seized territory since its comeback in November 2021.
The DRC has accused Rwanda of assisting the M23, an assertion that has been confirmed by UN experts and Western countries, while Kigali has disputed the allegations.
According to Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, who reported from a displaced people camp west of Goma, thousands of people have come in the previous few days, escaping M23 advances and fighting with government forces.
“This camp has at least doubled in size since we first came here a few days ago,” Webb said.
“[M23] has grown rapidly since its operations resumed just over a year ago. That’s what’s brought it close to the town of Sake, just about 10km [6 miles] away.
“The new arrivals have told harrowing stories of events they say have happened within the last week, where M23 fighters, according to the testimonies of the people in the camp, have been rounding up civilians in the villages, killing some with machetes, shooting some dead,” Webb said.
Demonstrations against the peacekeepers have grown in recent months. In July, protesters stormed MONUSCO facilities in Goma, Butembo, Beni and other towns to demand the peacekeepers’ departure.
At least 36 people were killed, including four UN soldiers, according to authorities.
A South African peacekeeper was killed and another seriously wounded on Sunday when their helicopter was shot at in North Kivu.
Last March, eight peacekeepers were killed when their helicopter crashed near a battle between the Congolese army and the M23.
Militias have plagued the mineral-rich eastern DRC for decades, many of them a legacy of regional wars that flared during the 1990s and early 2000s.
