• Congo’s government and the UN peacekeeping force said that soldiers returning from leave opened fire at a border post.
• At least two people died and 15 others were hurt.
• The mission has been under pressure from days of protests, which have left 20 people dead since Monday.

On Sunday, Congo’s government and the UN peacekeeping force said that soldiers returning from leave to a UN intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo opened fire at a border post, killing at least two people and hurting 15 others.

The MONUSCO peacekeeping mission in Congo, which has been under pressure from days of protests, was involved in the latest incident at the Congo-Uganda border post in Kasindi, in the troubled eastern part of the country.

No one knew why the soldiers started shooting.

Bintou Keita, the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Congo, said in a statement, “This serious incident has caused loss of life and serious injuries,”

Keita and the Congolese government said that an investigation had started and that the people they thought were responsible had been arrested.

“Faced with this unspeakable and irresponsible behaviour, the perpetrators of the shooting were identified and arrested pending the conclusions of the investigation which has already started in collaboration with the Congolese authorities,” Keita said.

She also said that contact had been made with the soldiers’ home country so that legal proceedings could start right away. She didn’t say what country it was.

In a statement, Congo’s government said that a preliminary investigation showed that two Congolese died and 15 others were hurt.

In the statement, government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said, “The government, together with MONUSCO, have launched an investigation to know the reasons for such crime and obtain severe punishments,”

He said that the peacekeepers who were involved in the incident would no longer be part of MONUSCO until a plan for the whole force to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo was finalised.

In 2010, MONUSCO took over from a different UN operation. As of November 2021, MONUSCO had more than 12,000 troops and 1,600 police on the ground. For years, they have been slowly pulling out.

Since the protests started on Monday, at least 20 people have died, including three peacekeepers.

Complaints that the mission hasn’t done enough to protect civilians from militia violence, which has been going on for years in the area, led to the protests.

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