RUBBERJul 26 -At least 15 people were killed and some 50 wounded in a second day of protests against the United Nations in the city of Goma, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Congolese government spokesman said.
Among the deceased are demonstrators and personnel of the UNas the crowd attacked the organization’s facilities.
A Reuters witness saw peacekeepers from the UN Two people were shot dead, while protesters threw rocks, vandalized and set fire to city buildings. UN.
Some demonstrators stormed the houses of the workers of the UNwho were evacuated from the city in a convoy of vehicles escorted by the army, another reporter said.
The protests began on Monday, when hundreds of protesters attacked and looted a warehouse of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in Goma demanding that the mission leave the country, and they continued on Tuesday.
The protests were called by a youth faction of the ruling party in Congo, which accuses the MONUSCO of failing to protect the population against the violence of armed groups.
The demonstrators were initially peaceful, but the protests turned violent when some picked up tear gas grenades from the ground and threw them at a department store. MONUSCO.
Congolese army and police officers deployed at the scene did not fire, he added.
Local authorities have appealed for calm, although similar protests broke out on Tuesday some 200 km north of Goma, in the town of Butembo.
A local activist at the scene, Afsa Paluku, told Reuters that security forces intervened and fired on protesters, killing two and wounding several more.
The mission has been carrying out its gradual withdrawal from the territory for years.
The resurgence of clashes between local troops and the rebel group M23 in eastern Congo has forced the displacement of thousands of people.
Attacks by armed groups linked to the Islamic State have also continued, despite a year-long state of emergency and joint operations against them by the Congolese and Ugandan armies.
The MONUSCO it took over from a previous peacekeeping operation in 2010. As of November 2021 it had more than 12,000 soldiers and 1,600 police deployed in the Congo.
