Refugees in Congo are being shot, looted, raped

GOMA, Congo — Shootings, looting and rape plague the already desperate lives of refugees in eastern Congo, where people caught between soldiers and rebels live in constant fear, U.N. officials said Friday.

Gunmen shot and killed a 20-year-old woman at a refugee camp in Kibati and forced families out of their huts before looting them, U.N. refugee agency spokesman William Spindler said.

He would not say which group the men might belong to, but soldiers fighting to put down the long-running rebellion are known to live among civilians at Kibati, near the front line.

"We fear that the civilian population, already in a dramatic and desperate humanitarian situation, could be caught in the crossfire should fighting resume in the area," Spindler told reporters in Geneva.

People live "in constant fear of looting, road blocks and forced labor," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"The security situation is still tense and very volatile," she added. "The looting continues."

So do rapes, which have become endemic in Congo. Byrs said 20 rapes were reported at a health center in Goma, the eastern provincial capital, between Nov. 12 and Nov. 18, but probably many more went unreported.

The U.N.'s peacekeeping force, numbering 17,000, has been unable to fulfill its primary mandate of protecting civilians in the region. The U.N. Security Council on Thursday approved sending 3,100 more soldiers and police to Congo.

But Congo and its small neighbor the Republic of Congo said 3,100 more is not enough, and France said the peacekeepers should be allowed to use force "in a proactive fashion."

"We believe that these 20,000 men will not be able to help ... (end) the disaster we are currently witnessing," Republic of Congo President Sassou Nguesso said in a joint statement after meeting with Congo's President Joseph Kabila.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said France was not alone in wanting to give the peacekeepers more robust rules of engagement, which govern the circumstances in which they can use force.

"They are very restricted as to how they can use their weapons," Chevallier said

Now the peacekeepers can fire only when fired upon, and only to defend civilians when they are under imminent threat; they also cannot shoot at armed troops without warning them or firing warning shots, said U.N. mission spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai.

U.N. military spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich on Friday welcomed the Security Council decision to send more troops and said he hoped the reinforcements "will come within the next few weeks."