GENEVA: A Swiss NGO said three local staff were killed during a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s war-torn east, adding it had halted projects in the area.
The M23 armed group and Rwandan troops last week captured Goma, the capital of the mineral-rich DRC province of North Kivu, blighted by three decades of conflict.
“It is with great shock and sadness that Swiss Church Aid (HEKS/EPER) announces that … three local HEKS/EPER employees were attacked and fatally injured during a humanitarian mission in the Rutshuru Territory in North Kivu” on Wednesday, the organisation said.
The NGO said it had “set up a taskforce to ensure the repatriation of the killed employees and support for their families”.
“The task force is also working flat out to obtain reliable information about the background and circumstances of the attack as quickly as possible,“ it said late Thursday.
“All project activities in North Kivu have been suspended until further notice”.
The Rwandan-backed M23 has launched a new offensive in the neighbouring province of South Kivu.
The lightning offensive marks a major escalation in the vast central African country’s volatile east, which has been by plagued by fighting between armed groups backed by regional rivals since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
This has also triggered a spiralling humanitarian crisis, forcing half a million people from their homes since the start of the year, UN figures show.
HEKS/EPER has been present in DR Congo since 2019, and has been working in North Kivu on aid projects, including urgent aid to displaced families, ensuring supplies of drinking water and working on road infrastructure to open humanitarian access.
Its projects in DR Congo are funded by among others the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been basically shut down since President Donald Trump returned to power last month.
