Riots in front of the headquarters of the UN mission in Goma.
(dpa) Six people have died in riots in Congo. Demonstrators devastated the headquarters of the UN mission in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. They forced their way into the building in the city of Goma on Monday and destroyed or stole furniture, eyewitnesses reported to the German Press Agency. Security forces responded with tear gas and gunfire. According to civil society organizations, six people died in the riots.
The police in the province of North Kivu said the attackers were criminals who had exploited the demonstration against the presence of the UN peacekeeping forces in the Congo for their own purposes. The Congolese government and the UN mission Monusco condemned the attacks on the UN headquarters in Goma.
Civil society organizations and President Félix Tshisekedi’s party called for the demonstration in Goma. The background to this is a statement by Congolese Senate President Modeste Bahati in mid-July. He had asked the UN mission Monusco to leave the Congo.
The UN stabilization mission has been stationed in north-eastern Congo for more than 20 years and is the largest peacekeeping mission in the world. According to the United States, around 130 different armed groups are said to be active in the Central African country; many of them are concerned with controlling the country’s valuable natural resources. With around 90 million inhabitants, Congo is rich in natural resources such as copper, cobalt, gold and diamonds.