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AT LEAST FIVE DEAD AS ANTI-UN PROTESTERS SEIZE BASE IN EASTERN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

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At least five people have been killed and about 50 injured during anti-UN protests in the eastern Congo city of Goma, government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on Tuesday.

Demonstrations broke out in Goma on Monday against the perceived ineffectiveness of the UN peacekeeping operation MONUSCO.

Hundreds of people blocked roads and chanted hostile slogans before storming the headquarters of a UN peacekeeping mission and a logistics base - an important commercial hub of North Kivu province.

Demonstrators smashed windows and looted valuables while helicopters airlifted UN staff from the compound and security forces fired tear gas in an attempt to push them back.

The unrest in Goma continued on Tuesday, when a man was fatally shot near a logistics base, an AFP correspondent saw.

In a tweet, government spokesman Muyaya added that security forces had fired "warning shots" at protesters in Goma to stop attacks on UN workers.

Anti-UN demonstrators also took to the streets in the cities of Beni and Butembo in North Kivu, according to witnesses.

Troops were deployed on the road leading to the MONUSCO base in Beni, which lies about 350 kilometers (215 miles) north of Goma, while protesters burned tires.

Security forces also dispersed protesters who gathered outside the MONUSCO base in Butembo, another provincial hub, local sources said.

Volatile region

The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUSCO, is one of the largest peacekeeping operations in the world.

But it regularly comes under fire in the country's restive east for its perceived inability to stop decades of bloodshed.

More than 120 armed groups roam the volatile region, where civilian massacres are common and conflict has driven millions from their homes.

Ahead of Monday's protest, the Goma youth branch of the ruling UDPS party issued a statement demanding MONUSCO "withdraw unconditionally from Congolese soil as it has already demonstrated its inability to protect us".

Khassim Diagne, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for MONUSCO, said after the protest that "the incidents in Goma are not only unacceptable, but completely counterproductive," adding that the peacekeepers were in the region to protect civilians.

He also told AFP that the people who entered the base were "looters". "We condemn them in the strongest possible terms," ​​he said.

Reviving Militia

The protest comes after Congolese Senate President Modeste Bahati told supporters in Goma on July 15 that MONUSCO should "pack its bags".

Protesters spoken to by AFP on Monday appeared to agree with that sentiment.

"They said they didn't have the power to fight the M23, what else are they doing here?" said Shadrac Kambale, a motorcycle-taxi driver, referring to the recently revived militia.

After lying largely dormant for years, the M23 group resumed fighting last November.

The rebels have since made significant progress in eastern Congo, including capturing the town of Bunagana in North Kivu on the Ugandan border.

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Sankara Bin, another protester, told AFP: "We don't want to see MONUSCO walking the streets of Goma, we don't even want to see their planes fly over."

The UN first sent an observer mission to eastern Congo in 1999. In 2010, it became the peacekeeping mission MONUSCO – the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a mandate to conduct offensive operations.

It currently has about 16,300 uniformed personnel and according to the UN, there have been 230 casualties among them.

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