UN chief Antonio Guterres cancels DR Congo trip over Ukraine crisis
UN chief Antonio Guterres cancels DR Congo trip over Ukraine crisis
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. PHOTO | AFP
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has cancelled a scheduled trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo due to the Ukraine crisis.
Mr Guterres was scheduled to visit and assess DRC’s troubled Ituri and North Kivu provinces from Tuesday.
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that “given the deterioration of the situation regarding Ukraine, the Secretary-General cancels his mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He will be back in New York on Tuesday.”
The UN on Monday opened a Security Council emergency meeting over the Ukraine. This was after Russia recognised two breakaway regions of Ukraine—Donetsk and Lugansk—and ordered troops to be deployed as peacekeepers.
Before the trip was Mr Guterres was scheduled to visit Roe in Djugu territory, Ituri province, where a base of peacekeepers is located.
The area is also home to tens of thousands of displaced people. In January, they numbered more than 70,000, including thousands of children. Many of them had fled the violence in November 2021 to the sites of Drodro and Tché, also in Djugu. This territory has also been marked in recent days by the attack on the “Plaine Savo” site in which 56 people were killed. This is the fifth attack since November 2021 directly targeting IDPs in Djugu.
Before the planned trip, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières had written to the UN Secretary-General expressing the need to ensure that humanitarian assistance efforts in the area are not impeded by ensuring “respect for humanitarian principles and the protection of civilians, guarantee healthcare and combat violence.”
“We draw your attention to the fact that in the face of an acute crisis in Ituri, neutral and impartial humanitarian assistance is at risk. Humanitarian assistance is not only compromised by the brutal acts of violence, but also by the absolute inability to reach all communities affected by the violence. Humanitarian organisations have suspended some of their services in parts of Ituri after being targeted by armed men.”
Mr Guterres was also due to travel to Goma and also to Kinshasa where he was scheduled to meet President Félix Tshisekedi on February 24.
