United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon greets children as he visits the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, eastern Congo, May 23, 2013.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has arrived in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma in a visit aimed at drawing attention to the conflict in the African country where millions have died during nearly two decades of violence.
The UN chief arrived in the flashpoint city on Thursday, hours after the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group, which is fighting government forces nearby, declared a ceasefire to permit the visit to take place.
Banâ„¢s brief visit to the mineral-rich city comes after three days of sometimes deadly fighting between rebels and government forces that ended a nearly six-month lull in fighting in the troubled east.
The new round of clashes began on Monday. At least 20 people have been killed in the clashes and residents of nearby refugee camps have been fleeing in their hundreds since then.
The mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, was recently renewed by the UN Security Council. The new mandate allows the creation of a special unit, called the Force Intervention Brigade, to carry out targeted offensive operations against armed groups rather than merely protecting civilians. The forces of the special unit are expected to arrive in the country before July 1.
“The intervention brigade being deployed within the UN peacekeeping operation is designed to bring added stability and protect civilians. But that is only one element of a much larger political process. A peace deal must deliver a peace dividend – health, education, jobs, opportunity,” Ban said.
When asked if the new force would fight, he replied they were “mandated to enforce peace whenever it is necessary, whenever security deteriorates to the point where it is necessary.”
The UN has nearly 20,000 peacekeepers in eastern Congo.
On Wednesday, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, who is also visiting Congo, pledged $1 billion in aid as part of a UN-brokered accord aimed at bringing peace and stability to the region.
The M23 rebels seized Goma on November 20, 2012 after UN peacekeepers gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people. M23 fighters withdrew from the city on December 1 under a ceasefire accord.
The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.
Since early May 2012, nearly 3 million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but more than 460,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.
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This article originally appeared on: Press TV