UN staff injured in DR Congo attack

GOMA, DR Congo: Three UNHCR staff members were injured in an attack in the east of DR Congo, the UN’s refugee agency said.

The UNHCR said in a statement, “Unidentified attackers opened fire on a UN convoy that was travelling in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo”.

“Bullets struck a vehicle… and three staff members were wounded,” it said of the attack Wednesday.

The attack took place in Mambassa locality, Lubero territory, North Kivu province, the statement said.

“The injured personnel were travelling in a clearly marked UNHCR vehicle. The team was returning to the city of Beni… after distributing aid to people already displaced from their homes by violence and to vulnerable families from the host community.”

The UN agency said it was “shocked and outraged by the attack and calls in the strongest terms for the respect for international humanitarian and human rights law to protect civilians and humanitarian workers from violence.”

Attacks and killings of civilians occur almost daily in DR Congo.

Since May, at least 1,546 civilians have been killed by armed groups in three provinces in the east of the country, according to the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a respected US-based monitor of violence in the region.

SOURCE: AFP