Send EU troops to Congo, says Oxfam
Oxfam has issued a fresh appeal to European Union foreign ministers to send troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo to avert a looming humanitarian disaster.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner are returning from a two-day visit to the region to join fellow EU ministers for talks in the French port city of Marseilles.
In a joint statement on Sunday they urged international action to bolster the existing 17,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force and secure access for humanitarian aid.
However, they stopped short of calling for the deployment of EU peacekeepers to the region.
Although the meeting in Marseilles is intended to discuss improving relations with the United States ahead of this week's presidential election, Oxfam said that the priority must be the situation in the Congo.
"The European Union is well placed to rapidly provide the additional troops that the people of Congo desperately need," said Juliette Prodhan, the head of Oxfam in Congo.
"Given the fragility of the ceasefire and fears for another outbreak of intense fighting around Goma, more troops must be deployed as soon as possible."
Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown disclosed over the weekend that contingency plans were being prepared for the deployment of a European Union force, including a British contingent.
However, with UK forces already stretched fighting on two fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr Miliband was quick to pour cold water on the suggestion that British troops could soon be caught up in a new overseas entanglement.
The current conflict in the Congo has its roots in the genocide 14 years ago in neighbouring Rwanda where up to a million people were killed when Hutu extremists turned on their Tutsi neighbours.
