U.N. peacekeepers will begin to deploy next week deeper into Congo’s northeastern Ituri province to try to stop further ethnic bloodshed after the latest in a series of massacres, a top U.N. official said Wednesday. At least 65 people, including 40 children, were shot and hacked to death with machetes Monday in the remote village of Katshelli, some 38 miles from Bunia, the province’s main town where U.N. peacekeepers have already deployed. “Next week, with the arrival of nearly all the Ituri brigade, we are going to deploy in three or four spots outside Bunia,” William Swing, head of Congo’s U.N. mission, said in the capital of Kinshasa. U.N. troops have carried out scores of reconnaissance missions outside Bunia. But it will be the first time they are deployed beyond the town — where they recently took over from a French-led force armed with a mandate allowing them to open fire to stop bloody attacks on civilians. Full Story
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