UN launches spy drones to pressure rebels in Congo

The UN is using surveillance drones for the first time in its history in an attempt to step up the pressure on militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Guardian reported. The first two spies in the sky were launched on Tuesday from the eastern city of Goma, which last year was briefly occupied by the M23 rebel group. UN officials expect another drone to be deployed by the end of the month and two more by the end of March. They have a range of 155 miles from their base in Goma. Presiding over an unveiling ceremony at a rickety airport, Hervé Ladsous, the UN peacekeeping chief, described the unmanned aerial vehicles as "an essential instrument... to observe armed groups and also to keep watch over civilians who are displaced or on the run due to the conflict". The Congolese defence minister, Luba Tambo, said the drones would play a critical role in helping patrol the nation's porous border with Rwanda, which was accused of sending fighters and weapons to M23 rebels. The M23 was defeated by the Congolese army backed by a UN intervention brigade last month. But the UN has said it will turn its attention to other armed groups in the region. Among them are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), led by extremist Hutus from Rwanda who took part in that country's 1994 genocide, and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist militant group. "We need to take care of the FDLR, the ADF, the Mai Mai," Ladsous told the Associated Press. "We are going to use these machines and they will have an important deterring effect." If they prove successful in Congo, he added, they could also be used in other UN peacekeeping missions. Commanders in South Sudan have reportedly expressed an interest, while Mali could be another candidate. In January, the UN security council approved the trial use of unarmed drones for intelligence gathering in eastern Congo. It has chosen a model known as the Falco produced by Selex ES, a subsidiary of the Italian giant Finmeccanica. The Falco is capable of carrying several types of high-resolution sensors. Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, the UN force commander in Congo, told the BBC that the drones would only fly over Congolese territory, as they have no mandate to operate in neighbouring countries. Congo has been engulfed in conflict for nearly two decades and armed groups have thrived in its mineral-rich east, despite the presence of nearly 20,000 blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers.