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Hunt Begins in Congo for Rwandan Militia Leaders
At least 1,500 Rwandan troops crossed the hilly border into eastern Congo on Tuesday morning, launching a major operation with the Congolese army to hunt down Rwandan Hutu militia leaders who fled into the region after participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to U.N. and Rwandan officials. "We estimate that 1,500 to 2,000 troops crossed the border," said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo. "After all the tensions between the two countries, this is very significant." The continued presence of the Hutu militia known as the FDLR has been a catalyst for more than a decade of conflict in eastern Congo, spawning an array of other militia groups that have made a way of life out of preying upon local villagers. By some estimates, more than 5 million Congolese have died in years of war and low-level conflict related to the messy, unresolved aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Hutu militia members and soldiers killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days of well-planned violence. Posted by: Fred 2009-01-21 |
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