Lendu
The Lendu are an ethnic unit west of Lake Nyoro in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo .
The sedentary farmers have been fighting against the nomadic cattle herders of the Hema ethnic group for several years . According to media reports , thousands of people are on the run in the Ituri area in the northeast of the country, in the border area with Rwanda and Uganda .
The reason for the fighting between the two ethnic groups are disputes over land ownership, especially in relation to new resource discoveries in the Republic of the Congo. The gold and oil discoveries in particular have played a decisive role in this in recent years.
Irregulars , which is a paramilitary formation from volunteers of the Lendu ethnic group, fighting together with the party Front of Nationalists and integrationists (FNI) and the People's Army for Democracy in Congo (FPDC) and rebels of the RCD-ML-K against the traditionally feuding ethnic group the theme. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda began peace negotiations on February 17th , which include the withdrawal of Ugandan troops and the establishment of the IPC and a pacification commission. The Lendu troops are non-combatants and are therefore not subject to international humanitarian law .
The fighting in the region also poses a humanitarian problem, as child soldiers are repeatedly forcibly recruited by the paramilitaries .
With this in mind, the UN sent a team to observe the country in 1999 . The UN mission MONUC has been stationed in the crisis region since then. Since this observation team was unable to mediate the fighting, the UN Security Council decided that an international peacekeeping force (led by the French military) should be deployed.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinz-Gerhard Zimpel: Lexicon of the world population . Ed .: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. Nikol-Verlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-933203-84-8 , p. 310 .