DaveW
06-16-03, 03:25 PM
What good is the UN when it can't even help its own people?
For six days, two terrified U.N. military observers phoned their superiors - as many as four times a day - begging to be evacuated from their remote outpost in northeastern Congo.
They were receiving death threats, they said. They were alone and unarmed in Mongbwalu, a town ruled by the Lendu tribal militias, notorious for cannibalism. A U.N. helicopter from the city of Bunia could have retrieved them in 35 minutes.
But the United Nations, handcuffed by rules and bureaucracy, didn't send a chopper. On May 18, 10 days after the two peacekeepers made their first call, the United Nations finally flew armed peacekeepers to Mongbwalu.
They found the mutilated bodies of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan, and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi.
Their corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone.
source: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/6089273.htm
For six days, two terrified U.N. military observers phoned their superiors - as many as four times a day - begging to be evacuated from their remote outpost in northeastern Congo.
They were receiving death threats, they said. They were alone and unarmed in Mongbwalu, a town ruled by the Lendu tribal militias, notorious for cannibalism. A U.N. helicopter from the city of Bunia could have retrieved them in 35 minutes.
But the United Nations, handcuffed by rules and bureaucracy, didn't send a chopper. On May 18, 10 days after the two peacekeepers made their first call, the United Nations finally flew armed peacekeepers to Mongbwalu.
They found the mutilated bodies of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan, and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi.
Their corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone.
source: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/6089273.htm