CONGO: The UN sent two soldiers to a remote corner of DR Congo to help bring peace and end a terrible war. But in death they fell victim to some of its most unimaginable horrors, reports Declan Walsh in Bunia.
When the remains of Maj Safwat Oran of Jordan and Capt Siddon Davis Banda of Malawi were recovered last month, their UN colleagues were aghast.
The corpses were covered in cigarette burns, they had been shot in the head and had their sexual organs cut off. According to some reports the hearts and livers were also missing.
The circumstances of the murders last month, near a gold mine in north-eastern Congo's calamitous Ituri district, are still under investigation. However details are emerging which will give pause to the 1,400 troops - possibly including Irish troops - due to be deployed this week to rescue the blighted UN mission.
The two soldiers had been sent to confirm the withdrawal of 6,000 Ugandan troops from Ituri on May 6th. But within a day, a vicious battle occurred between militia from the rival Hema and Lendu tribes. Guns, knives, spears and poisoned arrows were used in an orgy of killing which left over 430 dead.
Forty miles to the west, Mongbwalu, a desolate gold mining centre, was still calm. However the townspeople, also fearing an attack, began to flee. So did the two UN military observers, according to a local aid worker who helped recover their bodies.
As they were carrying their bags from their house, Lendu fighters accosted them. Accusing them of collaborating with the Hema, they carried them off.
The two soldiers were never seen again alive.
Belgian priest Father Joe Deneckere was in Bunia airport when their exhumed remains were flown into it five days later.
"The smell was truly awful. It remained with me for days afterwards," he said yesterday.
King Abdullah II of Jordan sent a special plane to Kinshasa to recover Maj Oran's body; Capt Davis Banda was returned to Malawi aboard a UN flight.
A horrified UN condemned the "savage" killings of its observers. The fact that their sexual organs were severed raised the spectre of cannibalism, a small but terrifying dimension of the Ituri conflict.
During the battle for Bunia, some victims' remains were badly mutilated and fighters wore penises and kidneys around their necks as magic amulets.
In another massacre last December, soldiers from the Movement for the Liberation of Congo forced villagers to eat the remains of their slain neighbours. In one case a mother had to consume her son's arm.
Did the two UN peacekeepers die in vain?
The first UN mission to Congo in 1960 - during which UN troops lobbed shells on hostile cities and secretary general Dag Hammarskjuöld was killed - was an unmitigated disaster. This one is not much better.
Since its inception in 1999, the $2 million a day mission to Congo - known under its French acronym MONUC - has been "a long, bad story", according to analyst Mr Francois Grignon.
Lukewarm international interest is to blame, but so too are naivety and ineptitude.
Of the planned deployment of 8,700 troops, only 5,000 are on the ground. Western nations are reluctant to contribute troops so the majority hail from third-world countries such as Uruguay and Morocco.
A much-touted disarmament and repatriation programme for Rwandan Hutu fighters has painfully crawled forward. The first disarmament resulted in a shoot-out with Hutu fighters, who had raided an army weapons cache. One of the centres, which cost $100,000 a week to run, only managed to repatriate a few dozen fighters. In total, about 700 Hutus out of an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 have been disarmed.
In Bunia, a weak and confusing mandate fused with a volatile situation to explosive effect. During the killings, the 700 Uruguayan troops cowered in their razor-wire compound, outraging aid workers and some townspeople.
Local commander Col Daniel Vollon argues that his men were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Yet local activists say they had warned of chaos if a large, robust force was not sent to replace the departing Ugandans.
The 1960 UN mission to Congo, originally called Operation Rum Punch, was accused of numerous abuses. Baluba tribesmen killed Irish troops; the Irish took life in return. Ethiopian troops executed prisoners of war and white mercenaries.
By the end of 1962, local Belgian medics were protesting "UN atrocities".
In the coming days, 1,400 troops, led by the French, are due to start deploying in Bunia. They have orders to shoot-to-kill if necessary.
The mission is fraught with peril. Hema or Lendu armed groups, comprised mostly of child soldiers, could easily attack. And if they venture into the surrounding bush, where killings could still be happening, they would run the risk of a Vietnamstyle situation.
And that is the last thing the beleaguered MONUC needs now.