UN peackeeper killed by landmine in Congo
Date: 14-May-02
Country: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Congo, said the dead man was a colonel from Algeria who was travelling on a routine patrol in Ikela, in the northern region of the vast central African county.
He is the first member of the U.N. mission to be killed in hostile action since peacekeepers started to deploy in 1999 in a country embroiled in a messy civil war for nearly four years.
An investigation has begun into the circumstances of the incident which also left an Indian major badly wounded. Ikela was besieged for 10 months from 1999 to 2000.
Six other members of the U.N. mission, which numbers about 3,050 military personnel, have died in the Congo, four from illness and two from accidents, Toure said.
An estimated two million people have died, most from starvation and disease, since the conflict began in 1998 when rebels invaded from the east.
