A United Nations spokesman said Friday that 14 peacekeepers have been killed and over 40 wounded in an attack in eastern Congo.
Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said the peacekeepers are mainly from a Tanzanian contingent. At least five Congolese soldiers were also killed in the attack.
“It’s a very huge attack, certainly the worst in recent memory,” Haq said.
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the undersecretary general of UN peacekeeping. said earlier on Twitter that the attack occurred Thursday evening in North Kivu province.
“Our thoughts and prayers with families and our colleagues in MONUSCO [peacekeeping mission]. Reinforcements are on scene and medical evacuations by mission ongoing,” Lacroix wrote.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, also known as Congo-Kinshasa, is the largest in the world and is aimed at calming a number of armed groups in the vast, mineral-rich Central African nation.
Congo has been rife with sectarian and ethnic conflicts, with the UN having sought hundreds of millions in humanitarian aid this year. Congo President Joseph Kabila has outstayed his late 2016 term limit, with new elections repeatedly delayed, most recently until late 2018.
Radio Okapi, which is linked to the peacekeeping mission known as MONUSCO, reported that peacekeepers on Thursday repelled an attack by fighters with the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group on a UN base in the Beni area. The base is home to the peacekeeping mission’s rapid intervention force, which has a rare mandate to go on the offensive.
The radio station, citing military sources, said fighting lasted four hours. It reported that Congolese forces did not intervene because the closest ones were several miles away.
