20101015
reuters

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo aims to boost its presence in the vast nation's turbulent east, but it can never protect everyone there without more troops and resources, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.

Roger Meece, head of the U.N. force in Congo known as MONUSCO, was responding to criticism from the international aid organization Oxfam, which said that MONUSCO can and should do more to assist civilians in areas where Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) operates.

"We are looking at what we can do to establish a presence and a greater response capability" in LRA areas, Meece told reporters. "Obviously one of the restraints that we have is ... the forces we have available to us."

MONUSCO, the world's biggest U.N. force with some 18,000 troops, is "pursuing actions as rapidly as possible," he said.

Earlier Meece told the U.N. Security Council that MONUSCO supports "regional efforts" to deal with the LRA. But he made clear that without more troops and resources, it could never protect all people in Congo's turbulent east.

"In this vast area, larger than Afghanistan, it is not possible for MONUSCO to ensure full protection for all civilians," he told the 15-nation council. "To approach this goal would require vastly greater force levels and resources."

Meece said more than 15,000 people were raped in eastern Congo last year.