By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Armed militants have killed a Pakistani soldier serving as a UN peacekeeper in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the country’s volatile east, the military said.
Pakistan’s military in a statement late Saturday said the militants numbering about six had reached the United Nations’ permanent operation base in the district of Minembwe.
Their presence at the facility was ostensibly to surrender their weapons as part of a UN initiative but the group’s leader started firing indiscriminately.
A Pakistani soldier simply identified as Babar, 35-year-old serving as a guard at the weapons surrender point was shot in the head, the statement said.
This however attracted a quick response from the Pakistani peacekeepers, the statement added without providing further clarifications.
The badly wounded soldier was rushed to the nearest Pakistani army medical unit but he later died.
The UN identified the gunmen in Friday’s attack as suspected Twirwaneho combatants. The Pakistani military said they were linked to the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi community in the eastern province of South Kivu.
Pakistan is part of a UN peacekeeping force of more than 16,000 troops and police called the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in The Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO).
It began in July 2010 and is aimed at protecting civilians, deterring armed groups and helping build state institutions and services.
