Uvira, 2 December 2016 – The United Nations Stabilization Mission in DRC, MONUSCO officially launched this Friday 2 December an Operational Strategy on the fight against insecurity in Uvira named “SOLIUV”. The ceremony was co-chaired by the General Commissioner of the Congolese National Police (Charles Bisengimana) and MONUSCO Police Commissioner  Awalé Abdounasir in  a ceremony attended by senior government officials: Governor of the South-Kivu province Marcellin Cishambo, provincial Commissioner of the National Police in the South Kivu province and MONUSCO South Kivu chief, Charles Frisby. In his welcoming remark, the territorial Administrator of Uvira Samuel Lungenga Lenga applauded the excellent collaboration between MONUSCO and the local authorities and recalled that his Entity receives different forms of supports from the UN Mission (without naming them). He expressed the hope to see such assistance continue insofar as they will help to markedly reduce criminality in the City of Uvira.

Uvira, one of the Cities in the South-Kivu province populated by roughly one million inhabitants is facing an ever increasing criminality. Very few are the days when racket, armed robbery, thefts, murders….are not reported in this city… At 19 hours, it looks like a ghost city, plunged in total darkness, without electrical power: no traffic, no people walking in the streets, no business opened… The population live with fear in their heart. The Congolese National Police (PNC), (wrongly?) accused of not doing anything to fight the criminality, point to the lack of resources.

Pursuant to its mandate that MONUSCO should do everything in its power to protect civilians MONUSCO has put in place a Strategy on the fight against insecurity named SOLIUV allowing for some assistance for the PNC: containers offered to the PNC and placed in some “hot” areas of the City with potential of violence, food rations and gas weekly offered by the Mission to a hundred elements of PNC, today, 24 “ Yamaha DT” motorbikes worth US$ 120,000 have been donated, 6 for the district of Minembwe in the territory of Fizi as part of PNC  capacity-building; moreover, two “toll-free numbers” are operational since Friday, 2nd December 2016 in Uvira, offered by MONUSCO. The population will be able to call the police (free of charge) to signal any criminal act in the City. This strategy will help to curb insecurity in the City of Uvira, recalled the chief of the Police and the authorities who attended the official ceremony that took place in the compound of the Office of the Territory of Uvira. 

Texte: Jean-Tobie Okala
Photos: Idrissou Mouniratou/Police Monusco Uvira