DRC: UN gets deadline to remove South Sudan fighters

The UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been given a week to remove hundreds of South Sudanese fighters out of the country.

UN said the men are loyal to South Sudan sacked Vice President, Riek Machar and have crossed into the country with him in August due to intense violence in the capital, Juba.

The 750 men have been disarmed and cared for by the UN mission stationed in the DRC.

Although the fighters have not been in any trouble since their arrival, but Congolese officials said they are security threat to them.

The men are being housed in UN camps in the volatile east of DR Congo, near the city of Goma in the north kivu province.

The demand from the DRC government that the men be removed came after a protest in Goma last Friday.

Residents in the area said they feared a repeat of the fallout of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda when perpetrators of the mass killings set up a base in eastern DRC.

“In April 1994, the population of North Kivu lived up to their legendary hospitality by welcoming Rwandan refugees,” Jean Paul Lumbu Lumbu, an activist in Goma, said.

DR Congo deadline for removal of South Sudan fighters – https://t.co/dhFG2vC0RE

— Abraham Adams (@AbrahamAdams19) October 5, 2016

Fighting between rival forces in Juba in July left hundreds of people dead less than a year after a peace deal was signed in South Sudan.