By Xinhua,
Kinshasa : The UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo will soon deploy a new force to help the government army of the troubled west African country contain conflicts, it was announced Friday.
Alan Doss, head of the UN peacekeeping mission known as MONUC, made the announcement during his stay in the eastern town of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.
He said the force will be deployed at the initiative of the member countries of the UN Security Council.
Doss, who was accompanied by US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer and ambassadors of several member countries of the UN Security Council, said he and his delegation were in Goma to evaluate the humanitarian situation.
“MONUC will provide its support so that the cease-fire is respected,” Doss said, adding that the Nairobi Declaration and the Amani Programme remained the only means of rule to ease the situation in the east of the country.
The two documents were signed respectively in November 2007 and April 2008 as a roadmap to peace in the restive east of the country.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, arrived in Congo’s capital Kinshasa Saturday on a mission to try to secure peace in the violence-plagued east of the country.
Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the EU was ready to send humanitarian aid to civilians fleeing the conflict zone.
An offensive by Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda, and subsequent killings and looting by Congolese army troops, have driven tens of thousands of civilians from their homes in North Kivu province on the border with Rwanda.