As many as nine Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers were killed in an ambush in Congo, a UN official said today.
"There was a patrol ambushed around Ituri. We do not know how many people were killed but preliminary reports from our mission show nine missing and possibly killed," said Mr Jean-Marie Guehenno, UN undersecretary-general for peacekeeping.
Asked by reporters what nationality the casualties were, he replied: "Bangladeshi". The UN force in Ituri is made up of four contingents of 850 soldiers each from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco and Nepal.
The district is one of Congo's worst troublespots, where ethnic militias have killed 50,000 civilians since 1999.
The former Zaire is struggling to recover from a wider five-year war that at one stage sucked in six neighbouring countries and, according to an international aid agency, has killed almost four million people.
About one-third of the world's biggest UN peacekeeping mission is based in Ituri, but attacks on civilians remain frequent. Clashes between militia during the last two months alone have displaced some 70,000 civilians, aid workers say.