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- Oct 16, 2014
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When the Congolese village of Miriki was attacked by rebels, villagers were entitled to expect a response from South African peacekeepers stationed just one kilometre away. None came. The resulting massacre left 17 people dead, and even the UN has admitted that South Africa should have done more.
South African peacekeepers are accused of not reacting as rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo slaughtered 17 people in the tiny village of Miriki.
The massacre, which occurred two weeks ago, was allegedly committed by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), although this has yet to be confirmed. Survivors are furious that the South African troops, part of an elite United Nations peacekeeping unit stationed just one kilometre away, did nothing to intervene, according to an RFI report.
On Wednesday, the UN deputy force commander was forced to admit that the South African unit had not properly discharged their duties. “It’s true that [this attack] happened in a village in which we have a base. It’s a base of South Africans from the intervention brigade…
A slow response was noted that I, as head of the force, consider to be inadequate,” said Jean Baillaud, deputy head of Monusco, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC. “We must learn all the lessons, proceed with all the checks as to what happened.”
The UN has opened an investigation into the incident, which raises uncomfortable questions about the mission’s effectiveness – after all, the protection of civilians is a fundamental element of its mandate. Monusco is one of the largest and most expensive peacekeeping missions in the world, with 20,000 soldiers and an annual budget of more than $1.3 billion.
Monusco’s South African contingent is part of Monusco’s elite Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), a pioneering unit empoweredto go on the offensive against rebels in the area. This makes their reported failure to intervene all the more inexplicable.
A Monusco source told AFP that South African troops were aware of the attack on Miriki, and fired several flares in the expectation that Congolese armed forces would take action. It remains unclear why the South African contingent did not take action themselves.
did not intervene. “The Congolese army and UN peacekeepers left civilians in Mutarule to be slaughtered even though they got desperate calls for help when the attack began,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
Source: Reuters
