NWI Insights - European Union sends peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of Congo

Last week on NWI, a report on the programme, European Journal, told of the first ever European Union (EU) peacekeeping mission to occur outside of Europe. Led by France the EU is sending 1400 peacekeepers to the war ravaged Bunia, in the north-east region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Fighting has been taking place in the DRC for the past 5 years, the report explained, and between 3 and 4 million people have been killed in the civil war. The fighting between rival groups is not purely-based on ethnic differences but is also about who will control the mineral rich resources of the DRC, asserts the report. Bunia is rich in oil and the DRC as a whole has the third largest reserves of diamonds in the world. At present there are 5000 UN peacekeepers in the region but they are relatively ineffective since their mandate allows them only to fire when fired upon and does not allow them to intervene in the fighting. In the past few months 500 people have been killed in Bunia and thousands have fled as refugees. The EU are the first member of the international community to take measures to stop the fighting in the region.

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