: Killing of BSF personnel in Congo may be war crime: UNSC #IndiaNEWS #Other News By Arul LouisUnited Nations, July 28 (IANS) The killing of the two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel involved with

Killing of BSF personnel in Congo may be war crime: UNSC #IndiaNEWS #Other News
By Arul LouisUnited Nations, July 28 (IANS) The killing of the two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel involved with the UN peacekeeping operations in Congo may be a war crime, the UN Security Council has declared, backing an assertion by the Acting Head of the mission there, who also said the world body will spare no efforts to find those responsible for the killings.
Issuing a strong condemnation of the attacks on UN peacekeepers in Congo, the Security Council in a press statement on Wednesday underlined that deliberate attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law and asked the Congolese authorities to swiftly investigate these attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Kassim Diagne, the Deputy Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the Congo mission, told reporters, We will not leave any stone unturned to get to the bottom of the investigation.
This was clearly an act of hostility against our troops and, as you know, this may be a war crime, he said while speaking from Kinshasa, the Congo state capital, through a video link to reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
A declaration for revitalising peacekeeping that was unveiled by Guterres in 2017 and endorsed by India said that violence against UN personnel may constitute war crimes and it has been reiterated by the Security Council several times.
BSF Head Constables, Sanwala Ram Vishnoi and Shishupal Singh, died in the attack on peacekeepers in Butembo in North Kivu on Tuesday.
A Moroccan Army peacekeeper was also killed in the attack carried out by a mob that Diagne added had been infiltrated by gangs and armed groups.
He said that the bodies of the peacekeepers were being transferred to Beni, a bigger town in north-eastern Congo, with an airport.
Were looking at arrangements for these remains to go back quickly to their families in India and Morocco, he added.
The BSF personnel were serving in the police component of the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in Congo, which is known as MONUSCO based on the initials of its name in French.
There were 139 police many of them women and 1,888 military personnel from India with MONUSCO.
With the killing of the two BSF personnel, the number of Indians killed in peacekeeping operations rises to 177.
MONUSCO was set up by the Security Council in 2010, succeeding an earlier mission created in 1999, to bring stability to the civil strife-torn country and end the free reign that some militias and rebel groups have in some parts of the country.
Diagne said that the situation was increasingly under control after two days of unrest, but the UN will remain extremely vigilant and extremely cautious, because this situation may develop further.