RefugeesA new U.N. military brigade set up to track down and “neutralise” armed groups in order to reduce violence in eastern Congo may put both civilians and aid operations at greater risk, some aid agencies said.

The brigade, currently 2,000 troops, is trying to establish a security zone that includes the capital of North Kivu province, Goma, and the town of Sake.

On Tuesday, armed groups within the zone were given 48 hours to hand over their weapons. After that, “the brigade will be intervening to make sure all people with arms are disarmed”, Charles Bambara, director of public information of the U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO, which now includes the brigade, said in a telephone interview from Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.

One of the largest aid agencies in the area, Oxfam International, has raised concerns about the zone, saying the brigade must ensure that civilians are protected from violence when it tries to disarm fighters.

“The removal of so many arms that have been used to terrorise civilians in the area should help reduce the appalling levels of human suffering but the U.N. must ensure that its operations do not make a bad situation much worse,” Oxfam’s humanitarian programme coordinator in Congo, Tariq Riebl, said in a statement.

Some previous military operations have led to a spike in attacks on civilians. In 2009, a campaign led by the Congolese army with U.N. support disarmed about 1,000 rebels, but displaced 900,000 people. About 1,400 civilians were killed and thousands of women raped, according to Refugees International.

Many armed groups in eastern Congo have been attacking civilians for years, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, many of them several times. There are now 2.6 million people displaced in Congo by fighting, nearly 1 million in North Kivu alone.

Some hope the brigade – the United Nations’ first such force – will reduce levels of violence and displacement. It will be active across eastern Congo, with a focus on North and South Kivu provinces, and will reach a maximum strength of 3,000 troops.

“It is a kind of test to see how this kind of force could help in protecting civilians … the key mission for all peacekeeping operations,” said MONUSCO’s Bambara.

It will act as a deterrent force and be another tool to help bring about peace, alongside efforts to reach a negotiated settlement to the conflict, he added.

AID WORKERS AT RISK?

The U.N. mandate in Congo includes peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and the brigade. Because all three are part of the same organisation, some aid agencies fear the brigade’s more aggressive combat duties will make aid workers more vulnerable to attack by armed groups being targeted by the brigade.

“The danger is that our partner staff will not be able to operate as freely as they can do, because they may be perceived to be linked with the (brigade) … and we’ll potentially be targeted,” Christian Aid’s humanitarian director, Nick Guttman, told Thomson Reuters Foundation on his return from a visit to Congo.

During lulls in fighting, aid agencies are currently able to work in areas controlled by different factions. “That will be made much harder if we begin to be perceived as on one side (rather) than completely impartial,” Guttman added.

After the U.N. Security Council’s decision in March to establish the brigade, one rebel group,M23, became “increasingly aggressive”, according to the U.N. secretary-general’s June report.

In April it blocked U.N. civilian trucks, claiming they were carrying weapons for the new brigade or the army. The M23 also held rallies inciting people to demonstrate against the brigade, leading to large numbers of people fleeing to avoid having to take part in the protests.

The U.N. agency coordinating humanitarian aid in Congo says it is too soon to pass judgment. “I think we shouldn’t jump the gun and say ‘oh the brigade is coming and it’s going to cause a lot of chaos’,” Yvon Edoumou, public relations officer for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kinshasa, said in a phone interview.

U.N. agencies and many international NGOs have been working in eastern Congo for more than 10 years and have had time to “build their brand”, he added.

“Of course we’re being prudent in the sense that we’re making scenarios ‘what if, what if’, but so far the brigade has not impacted on our ability to deliver food, aid, water, medicine. Let’s see what happens,” he said.

“The one thing we hear a lot from people is: ‘We need peace. We just need an end to the war’,” OCHA’s Edoumou said.

Reuters