Crisis in DRC: UN

11 Dec, 2008

The United Nations has accused the governments of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo of directly helping warring factions in the eastern North Kivu district, where an unknown number of people have been killed and over 250,000 displaced since the resumption of hostilities in late August. In a draft report compiled by an expert panel Kigali is accused of supplying aid and child soldiers to the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) led by the rebel soldier Laurent Nkunda, who claims he is protecting his ethnic Tutsi community from attack by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FLDR), a formation of Hutu extremists who fled to eastern DRC from Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. Likewise the report says the Congolese army has been collaborating with the FLDR. Both sides have denied the charges.

The accusations have emerged as representatives of the government of DRC and Nkunda