DR CONGO: A French military reconnaissance team arrived in the northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bunia yesterday as the UN said at least 230 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in clashes there in the past two weeks.
The team came to pave the way for the possible deployment of a major international UN force.
It arrived a day after the existing UN mission in DRC, known as MONUC, announced that two of its observers, a Jordanian and a Nigerian, had been "brutally murdered" in Ituri, a region where ethnic factions have been engaged in a long and bloody feud.
It was the first time MONUC personnel had been deliberately killed since the mission was mandated in 1999, and the deaths clearly upped the stakes for further international involvement in the region.
MONUC spokesman Mr Hamadoun Toure yesterday gave the first details about the extent of casualties recently sustained in Bunia.
"More than 230 bodies were collected between May 4th and yesterday \, and we are still looking for bodies," he said.
"From what I have seen myself, most of them were civilians," another MONUC official said.
Over the weekend of March 10th and March 11th, MONUC sources said that more than 30 people, including three babies and two priests, were killed in massacres.
Last week 10 civilians were killed by shrapnel or stray bullets while seeking shelter in MONUC's Bunia headquarters.
The fierce clashes in the Ituri area prompted most of the 350,000 residents of its main town Bunia to flee and raised fears of a major humanitarian disaster.
Ethnic clashes in Ituri have claimed some 50,000 lives and displaced 500,000 people since 1999.