It is with students and their teachers that the International Day of Peace observed on September 21 of each year was commemorated this Wednesday in Ituri. In Bunia first, the Bangladeshi blue helmets brought together around fifty students, including 30 girls, and their supervisors at Ndoromo military camp, to raise their awareness of the importance of peace, a behavior that should be nurtured from an early age, at school, in the family. These…
Moussa Abdula was 20 years old when he joined a Mai-Mai self-defense group, before being recruited by the M23 rebel group in exchange for huge financial promises. After 4 years of a life of violence, he surrendered to MONUSCO and joined the Mission's disarmament, demobilization, and community reintegration (DDR) program. On September 15, 2022, Moussa was returned to his family in Kalemie territory, Tanganyika province. 191 ex-combatants…
“ Thanks to MONUSCO peacekeepers we have settled here. They protect us. The day they leave here, we will also have to move to avoid being killed by the Codecos,” said a displaced woman from the Djaiba camp, in the Walendu Djatsi sector, Djugu territory, on September 14, 2022. about 65 km from Bunia, in Ituri. This camp, located a few meters from MONUSCO base, is as large as five football fields and is home to more than six thousand people. Once a…
The Mission’s Child Protection Section (CPS) in the DRC announced on Tuesday, September 13, 2022, in Bunia, Ituri, it had facilitated the withdrawal of 235 children from armed groups in this province. These children had been detained in the ranks of armed groups since January 2021. The announcement was made in a two-day workshop on the validation of the operational plan for the Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration of children. The plan…
From January 1 to September 6, 2022, fifty-one (51) armed groups’ combatants voluntarily surrendered to MONUSCO base in Minembwe, South Kivu, with 31 AK-47 weapons. This is the result of the robust sensitization carried out by the Disarmament, Demobilization, Repatriation, Reintegration and Resettlement (DDRRR) section of MONUSCO in the territories of Uvira and Fizi/Itombwe. The ex-combatants included nine children who were handed over to MONUSCO…
A new report has revealed how projects supported by a UN trust fund for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel are helping victims to regain their dignity, learn new skills, and improve their livelihoods while avoiding stigmatization. Details of the projects, and the ways in which they are having a positive impact on the lives of victims and children born as a result of sexual exploitation and abuse, are contained within the…
The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2641 (2022) on the notification regime for the purchase of arms in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), adopted on June 30, 2021, gave rise to a wave of reactions among the Congolese people, interpreted as a ban on the purchase of arms by the DRC, thus preventing the latter from acquiring weapons to ensure the security of its territory. Contrary to what many people believe, the United Nations…
" Today, thinking about restoring the trust means the trust has been lost following some events, some disappointments," said the Mayor of Bukavu, Meschac Bilubi Ulengabo, while welcoming his guests at a brainstorming workshop around the restoration of confidence and collaboration between MONUSCO and the population in the South Kivu province. Organized from August 30 to 31, 2022 in Bukavu, the workshop aimed to serve as a brainstorming framework…
“For those who still remember, Peacekeepers used to be present in several places in the country. Currently, they are in a few provinces only. MONUSCO is only present in 14 or 15 out of the 145 territories DRC has”. The head of MONUSCO was responding to the questions put by journalists from both national and international media outlets during her official visit on Monday, August 29 to the city of Beni, North Kivu province. The media professionals…
Conscious of the existence of this scourge and its negative impact in such a volatile context faced by the DRC in general and Ituri in particular, the provincial bureau of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), with support from the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office of MONUSCO/Bunia, organized from Wednesday 24 to Thursday 25 August 2022 a training workshop on the monitoring of the hate speech and the development of strategies to…