KINSHASA, Congo (AP):
UGANDAN REBELS ambushed Guatemalan special forces soldiers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo yesterday, sparking a gunbattle that left eight Guatemalan troops and 15 attackers dead, U.N. officials said.
The Guatemalans were conducting a sweep for Lord's Resistance Army rebels from Uganda who were believed to be in Garamba National Park, on Congo's remote northeastern border with Sudan, said Kemal Saiki, a U.N. spokesman.
The incident was the second-biggest single loss of life suffered by the 16,000-strong peacekeeping mission since it began in 1999. Nine Bangladeshi troops were killed in February 2005 by ethnic militiamen.
The Ugandan rebels operate mostly from bases in southern Sudan, but some fighters fled to eastern Congo late last year following pressure from Ugandan troops who have been permitted by Sudanese authorities to pursue them to their rear bases.
Between 50 and 60 Ugandan rebels armed with heavy machine-guns were involved in yesterday's attack, which began at dawn and lasted about four hours until a helicopter-borne Nepalese contingent arrived in support, said Hans-Jakob Reichen, a U.N. military spokesman.
U.N. troops killed 15 of the attackers, Reichen said.
Five Guatemalan soldiers were also wounded, the U.N. said in a statement, revising an earlier figure of 14 wounded. The dead and injured were flown to a hospital in the regional capital, Bunia.
The U.N. has about 16,000 troops in mineral-rich Congo - 105 of them from Guatemala - helping the government secure a fragile peace after a 19982002 war that drew in the armies of half a dozen African nations.
Saiki said the U.N. would not be deterred: "We are determined to stay the course," he told The Associated Press. "And anyone who thinks we're going to give up is seriously mistaken."
