The Southern African Development Community (SADC) said on Monday that three Tanzanian troops were killed and three others injured after hostile mortar fire fell close to their camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
They were a part of the Southern African peacekeeping force that was sent into the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in December of last year to support government troops against M23 insurgents in the ongoing conflict.
There are soldiers in the force from Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa, three of the strongest militaries in the region.
According to reports, the mortar attack happened last Thursday, and on Monday, SADC headquarters in Goma, the province capital, hosted a ceremony to remember the fallen soldiers.
SADC also said that a soldier from South Africa had died in a hospital while being treated for unspecified health problems.
The force suffered its first losses in mid-February when two South African soldiers were killed by mortars at a camp about 20 kilometres from the provincial capital, Goma.
A Congolese security source, who asked not to be named, said the Tanzanian casualties happened at the same camp.
The DRC, the UN and Western countries accuse neighbouring Rwanda of supporting the rebels in a bid to control the region’s vast mineral resources, an allegation Kigali denies.
The eastern part of the DRC has been plagued by violence from local and foreign armed groups for nearly 30 years.
After several years of dormancy, the mostly Tutsi M23 group took up arms again in late 2021 and has seized large swathes of North Kivu province.
