26 08 13 AFP: UN opens probe after two die in Goma protest

Martin Kobler, head of the
UN's MONUSCO mission, said in a statement he "deplored" the deaths
and had "asked for an investigation jointly led by DR Congo police and the
MONUSCO to be opened".

Witnesses said two
peacekeepers from Uruguay
shot dead two people Saturday who were part of a crowd attempting to storm the
mission's base near the airport during a protest decrying the UN's inaction in
the strife-torn region.

"It was the Uruguayans
who opened fire on our group. Two people were killed instantly and four others
were injured and rushed to hospital," Augustin Matendo, one of the
protesters, told AFP.

A military source who spoke
on condition of anonymity said that "the Uruguayan troops were overcome by
the crowd which was trying to enter their camp and shot to disperse
people."

MONUSCO was not immediately
available to comment on the claim.

Shelling in Goma's western
neighbourhood of Ndosho on Saturday killed three people and wounded three UN
peacekeepers, just days after renewed clashes between the Congolese army and
M23 rebels.

Britain said Sunday that it was withdrawing
staff based in the city due to the spike in violence.

"Our staff was
instructed to leave the area overnight as a precautionary measure," a
foreign office spokesperson told AFP.

Only a very few staff were
being withdrawn, the spokesperson said, adding that London would review the situation on Sunday.

After a two-month lull,
fighting between the army and the M23 has erupted sporadically since mid-July
in North Kivu, a chronically unstable region
which has the mining hub of Goma as its capital.

In an open letter to UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Saturday, M23 rebel leader Bertrand Bisimwa
accused Kinshasa
of targeting civilians and demanded an independent inquiry into its actions.

The M23, former fighters in
a Tutsi rebel group who were integrated into the regular army under a 2009
peace deal but mutinied in April last year, have moved closer to Goma, accusing
the government of reneging on its pledge to hold direct talks.

Rebels have threatened to
recapture Goma but UN forces, including a 3,000-strong intervention brigade
with a robust mandate to eradicate armed groups in the region, moved in to
create a security zone around the city.

Now in possession of a
beefed-up mandate since this latest resurge in violence, the UN brigade has
launched its first military action in the country to back government troops and
hold off the rebels.

Rwanda, which accused Congolese troops of
firing a rocket and mortar shells over the border in past days, warned Saturday
that it would not stand by "indefinitely".

Eastern DR Congo,
which borders Rwanda and Uganda, was the
cradle of back-to-back wars that drew in much of the region from 1996 to 2003
and were fought largely over its vast wealth of copper, diamonds, gold and
coltan, a key mobile phone component.