The United Nations said on Friday that at least 15 peacekeepers, all from Tanzania, were killed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by militant extremists. It was the deadliest assault on the organization’s peacekeeping forces in nearly a quarter century. Five Congolese soldiers also died and at least 40 other people were injured when the militants attacked a United Nations base in the North Kivu region on Thursday evening, the organization said in a statement from its mission in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.
United Nations peacekeeping officials attributed the attack to a militant group known as the Allied Democratic Forces, which has its origins in neighboring Uganda and is accused of killing hundreds of people over the past three years.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, condemned the attack, saying it constituted “a war crime” and was the worst attack on peacekeepers in recent history.
“I want to express my outrage and utter heartbreak at last night’s attack on United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Mr. Guterres said. “It is another indication of the enormous sacrifices made by troop-contributing countries in the service of global peace.”
Peacekeeping officials said the North Kivu attack constituted the worst single loss since 22 Pakistani peacekeepers were killed in Somalia in 1993. The United Nations declined to say how many militants were killed in the North Kivu attack, but a spokesman for the Congolese Army in North Kivu, Capt. Mak Hazukay, said 72 died. The raid took place at a place called Semuliki, on the border with Uganda. The region was a stronghold for the militant group, according to the Congo Research Group, but in early 2014, most of its camps there were destroyed in raids by the Congolese Army, with the support of United Nations peacekeepers.
Hundreds of civilians were killed in the region in the years following the raid, and the United Nations has blamed the rebel group for much of the killing.
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