Gunmen killed nine UN Bangladeshi peacekeeping troops in an ambush in northeastern Congo, the deadliest assault ever on the 6-year-old mission trying to shepherd the nation out of the chaos of a civil war that left some 3 million dead.
The attack occurred Friday near the town of Kafe as 21 Bangladeshi peacekeepers were patrolling in the area of a camp housing families displaced by persistent fighting in Congo's lawless Ituri province, UN spokesman Mamadou Bah said.
The assailants are believed to have been hiding in the thick grass along the roadside and pounced on the patrol as it drove past, said Colonel Dominique Demange, head of UN troops in Congo. The gunmen escaped before peacekeepers could fully react.
The UN sent an attack helicopter and a rapid reaction force, but bad weather limited their effectiveness, Demange said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the "reprehensible and criminal attack" and called on Congo's transitional government to bring the killers to justice, his spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York.
Annan said the Congo peacekeeping mission would not be deterred from carrying out its mandate.
Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia issued messages of "condolence and profound sorrow."
The peacekeepers had arrived in Kafe, 32km northwest of the provincial capital of Bunia, on Jan. 23 to help secure and feed and administer medicine to people who have fled the fighting.
The attack occurred as peacekeepers made their way to camps believed to belong to a militia group that has refused to disarm, Eckhard said.
UN officials in Congo believe "the attack was in response to efforts by peacekeepers to neutralize the militias, which have been terrorizing the local population, in addition to looting and carrying out illegal tax collection," he said.
"These blue helmets were out there protecting people, and they got ambushed while doing it," Bah said, referring to the helmets worn by peacekeepers.
Some 15,000 peacekeepers from 100 countries -- the world's largest peacekeeping deployment -- are overseeing a transition toward peace in Congo, where a 1998-2002 war launched by foreign-backed rebels drew in armies from six nations and killed an estimated 3 million people, most through strife-induced hunger and disease.
The number will increase to 16,700 troops by March. About 4,800 UN forces are in Ituri.
While most of the nation has eased into calm, fighting between tribal factions continues in Ituri, making the mineral-rich region the greatest challenge to the UN mission. Several years of peace talks, arrests of militia commanders and even a 2003 EU military operation led by the French army hasn't stopped the violence.
Attacks have killed dozens in Kafe, which is in a vast, remote region, since December. Most of the killings are blamed on militia of the ethnic Lendu, who target members of the Hema tribe. The tribal rivalry has been fueled by the influx of arms from Congo's five-year war and by outsiders vying for Ituri's mineral wealth.
Since 1999, fighting in the northeastern district of Ituri has killed more than 50,000 and forced 500,000 to flee their homes, UN officials and human rights groups say.
The UN also suspects Lendu militia are responsible for kidnapping 34 women and children in the nearby village of Che in late January. Most are still missing.
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