Congo protesters set fire to UN buildings after latest deadly militant attack

Two civilians and two policemen died in clashes between protesters and police in eastern Congo on Monday after protesters in the town of Beni set fire to the mayor's office and several United Nations buildings in anger at a new round of violence by suspected Islamist rebels.

Rebels believed to belong to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed eight people in an overnight raid, police said, stoking residents' fury at the perceived inaction of both the government and a UN peacekeeping mission.

Civil society leader Kizito Bin Hangi said they warned the Congolese army when they saw suspicious activity in the centre of town Sunday,, but soldiers came too late.

One protester, Kasereka Fundi, suggested the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUSCO) should leave if it won't protect the population.

"What did we do to deserve that, do we not have the same rights as other citizens of Congo?" Fundi said. "We are killed while MONUSCO is here to protect us. Let them go home. We do not need tourists in our country."

The police said protesters torched the mayor's office. A tweet by the police force showed flames shooting from the window and thick black smoke billowing above.

The protesters then marched to the offices of MONUSCO, said Teddy Kataliko, a civil society leader in Beni.

"Several offices at the MONUSCO headquarters were set on fire and looted," Kataliko said. "Residents are demanding the withdrawal of MONUSCO from Beni because of the inaction of UN forces."

"We do understand the anger and frustration of the population but ask for understanding that attacking UN or local facilities… actually weakens the Congolese army's operations against the ADF," said Matthias Gillman, a UN spokesperson.

'We can't put a peacekeeper behind every Congolese'

The UN mission has not been participating in the army's offensive against the ADF launched late last month, he added, other than providing intelligence and medical assistance.

ADF fighters have killed more than 70 civilians in reprisal attacks since those operations began, according to Kivu Security Tracker, a research group.

"It is scandalous that civilians are dying day in, day out while the local police and nearby UN peacekeepers stay put in their camps," said Seif Magango from rights group Amnesty International.

The dense jungle terrain makes it difficult to protect every remote village, especially when the ADF tend to attack silently at night, the United Nations said.

"We can't put a peacekeeper behind every Congolese," Gillman said.

The violence by the ADF and a patchwork of militias and criminal bands near Congo's borders with Uganda and Rwanda has hampered efforts to eradicate a more than year-long Ebola outbreak, which is the second deadliest of all time.

The ADF, an Islamist militant group founded in neighbouring Uganda, has operated in eastern Congo for two decades. Some ADF attacks have been claimed by Islamic State, although the extent of any relationship between the two groups is not clear.

Beni was an early epicentre in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo and the World Health Organization has said rebel attacks hamper the crucial work of containing the virus that has killed more than 2,100 people since August 2018.

The World Vision aid group said its operations in Beni had halted and it could be days before health workers' Ebola prevention efforts could resume.

"This outbreak of violence could not have come at a worse time. We were just about getting on top of the Ebola epidemic," its regional director Helen Barclay-Hollands said in a statement. Cases of the virus have dropped in recent weeks.

The Congo-based Centre for Studies of Peace and Defence of Human Rights urged calm in a statement released Monday. It condemned the massacres by ADF rebels as well as the attacks on UN facilities.

"While sharing the anger felt by the youth of Beni and the revolt that these terrorist acts provoke, [the centre] asks all residents of Beni to remain calm, show restraint and a sense of responsibility so as not to fall into the trap of the enemy," it said.