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Congo ambush kills 9 Bangladeshi troops

Star Report
Nine UN peacekeepers from Bangladesh were killed and 11 others wounded yesterday when two UN patrols were ambushed in northeast Democratic Republic of Cpngo (DRC), the UN mission in the country said.
The attack, One of the bloodiest on a UN peacekeeping mission in the recent years, took place in the lawless Ituri region of the former Zaire, which is a stronghold of several ethnic and political armed militias, the UN mission (MONUC) said.
Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) has identified eight of the
nine troops dead in the second largest casualty of Bangladeshi peacekeepers overseas as members of Bangladesh Army and the other of navy.
In the biggest casualty on December 25, 2003, 15 UN Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed in a plane crash in Benin that killed a total of 119 people.
Those who were killed yesterday are Captain Shahid Ashraf Khan. Warrant Officer Sohrab Hossain Talukder, Sergeant Sirajul Islam, Corporal Atoar Rahman Sarker, Leading Seaman Nurul Islam and privates Abdus Salam (No. 4009645), Abdus Salam (No. 4009837), Zahinil Islam and Belal Hossain.
Names of the injured were not available immediately.
Steps are underway to bring the bodies of the dead to Dhaka under UN supervision, the ISPR said in a media release last night.
AFP reports: "At around 9:20 (0720 GMT) this morning, two foot patrols of a Bangladesh MONUC contingent were caught in an ambush five kilometres west of Kafe" in the Ituri region, MONUC mission spokesman Mamadou Bah said.
He said nine peacekeepers had beenkilledbutanotherfour, initially reported as missing, had later been found 'in good health'.
Details of the ambush were
sketchy and it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but Bah said the attack took place in an area where the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), one of the sixDRCmilitias,isactive.
The security situation in the region has deteriorated in recent weeks despite MONUC operations to dismantle militia camps run by a range of groups that have been terrorising villagers.
Since the end of last year, there had been a surge ofviolence in Ituri where the militias have gone on a spree of looting, rape and murder against civilians, driving more than 70,000 people from their homes.
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The UN force in Ituri also includes peacekeeping troops from Pakistan, Morocco and Nepal.
Ituri has been the scene of bitter ethnic fighting for a number of years.
Violence between rival militias resumed in the mineral-rich province in December, and aid workers say tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting - many fleeing to neighbouring Uganda.
UN forces have come under attack in Ituri before, but this is the first time that soldiers have been killed there, says the BBC's correspondent in the region, Ishbel Matheson.