U.S troops to train Congo soldiers

  1. Posted on Tuesday 23 February 2010 - 12:30
    Muhyadin
    Muhyadin Ahmed Roble, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
    The U.S military command for Africa (Africom) has begun on Monday training 1,000 Congolese troops in the north of conflict-driven Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.S embassy in the central African country said.
    soldiers
    The U.S. Special Forces are training Congo's forces at the eastern town of Kisangani in Democratic Republic of Congo; U.S ambassador in Kinshasa William Garvelink told reporters that the forces will be trained tactics, maintenance and medical care.

    "We are working together to build a professional military that protects Congolese citizens and their human rights and protects the territorial integrity of the Congo," Garvelink said.

    Last year, a Congolese army operation backed by U.N. troops drew criticism for wide-ranging human rights abuses and both sides say they want to improve army discipline, Reuters reported.

    The exercise had been delayed by two years because of American Special Forces' commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    In Congo, the deadly five-year war which ended in 2003 has killed over five million people and more than one million civilians were forced to flee their homes in the eastern provinces in 2009 where the UN-backed Congolese army fighting against the rebels.

    The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) were accused of links in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which killed an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus fled to Congo and taking part in the violence in the region.

    The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan militia which was accused for abducting children to use as child soldiers and sex slaves, continue its attacks on civilians in north-eastern DRC.

    In 2009 the LRA shot 849 civilians and kidnapped a further 1,486, including 185 children, according to UN's report.

    Humanitarian groups can not reach 30% of the displaced people because of ongoing insecurity in parts of the Kivus, the UN said.

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