Two South African U.N. peacekeepers have been killed in Congo, raising fresh fears the country's fragile peace process could be shattered even though renegade troops pulled out of the border town of Bukavu.
The United Nations said on Sunday the two peacekeepers were shot dead when their convoy was ambushed outside Goma, some 120 km (80 miles) north of Bukavu and also on the eastern border with Rwanda. Nine other peacekeeepers were wounded.
General Obed Rwibasira, army commander of the North Kivu province, said the attackers were Interahamwe, Rwandan Hutu rebels who fled into Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide, but the U.N. said it did not know who was responsible.
Under pressure to withdraw from the U.N. and international mediators, hundreds of fighters loyal to dissident commander General Laurent Nkunda headed north of Bukavu, although U.N. peacekeepers on the ground remained cautious.
"We will monitor the movement very closely because (Nkunda) made a similar commitment on this which he did not respect," said U.N. spokesman Sebastien Lapierre in Bukavu.
Congo's turbulent east has plunged into a fresh spiral of violence since Nkunda's forces seized Bukavu last week, triggering concerns it could spark a wider war. Some 90 people have been killed in more than a week of fighting.