GOMA: Suspected M23 rebels fired on a UN helicopter Friday wounding two South African peacekeepers in DR Congo‘s volatile east while an explosive device went off in a major city injuring two others.
The head of the UN’s MONUSCO peacekeeping mission Bintou Keita strongly condemned the attack saying such strikes can constitute “a war crime”.
The helicopter was attacked in the Karuba region of the restive Nord Kivu province, the UN said, adding that one of the peacekeepers was seriously injured.
It was able to land in the provincial capital Goma and the injured soldiers were admitted to hospital. In New York, the UN Secretary General’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric, said the two wounded were South African.
On Friday, an explosive device went off in Goma wounding two people, with authorities blaming the M23 militia.
Some Goma residents said a bomb had landed near a school in the Mugunga district on the city’s edge while others said it was a mortar shell.
“We don’t know if it came from the enemy or if it was friendly fire,” said a security source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The army spokesman in North Kivu, Guillaume Ndjike, said the M23 had opened fire from a hillock 20 kilometres (10 miles) from Goma which landed in Mugunga.
Medics reported two people injured while a local resident said a house was destroyed.
After years of dormancy, the M23 (March 23 Movement) took up arms again in late 2021 and has since seized vast swathes of Nord Kivu.
The territories of Rutshuru and Masisi in the province have borne the brunt of the fighting between M23 and Democratic Republic of Congo armed forces.
After a lull during the December 20 election which returned President Felix Tshisekedi for a second term, fighting has resumed around Goma.