Insecurity in the copper-rich Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a “serious concern,” the outgoing head of the UN peacekeeping mission has said.\n<\/p>\n
“It’s a quite significant problem, and I think it has all the prospects of becoming worse,” Reuters quoted Roger Meece as saying on Monday.\n<\/p>\n
Meece, who is the head of the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, called for a political solution for the problem.\n<\/p>\n
“One can do what is possible militarily and or with a police force but … the real solutions have to be found in these political factors,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
On June 10, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed former German diplomat Martin Kobler to succeed Meece as his special envoy to DRC. <\/p>\n
Meece completes his assignment in the African country in July.\n<\/p>\n
Katanga province, in the southeast of the vast DRC, sits on some of the world’s largest copper reserves. The province exported 600,000 tons of copper last year.\n<\/p>\n
Katanga is the native province of President Joseph Kabila and has long had a fractious relationship with the central government in Kinshasa. It tried to secede directly after DRC’s independence from Belgium in 1960.\n<\/p>\n
In March, the Mai Mai Bakata-Katanga rebels attacked Katangese capital of Lubumbashi, marching through city streets and then fighting with the army close to the governor’s offices. The official casualty toll was 23 dead.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
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