Some 3,000 extra government soldiers will go to Congo's lawless Ituri district to hunt down the gunmen who killed nine Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers last week, one of the country's vice presidents said on Monday. The announcement came as foreign diplomats accused the mineral-rich district's militia leaders, some of whom have been appointed generals in the fledgling national army, of pursuing criminal activities rather than working for peace. Militias divided along ethnic lines have killed at least 50,000 people since 1999 and forced the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo to deploy nearly a third of its 16,000 peacekeepers in the remote eastern district. The militia leaders in Ituri have long been accused of exploiting the ethnic conflict to control cross-border trade with Uganda and levy taxes on lucrative gold mines. "We will send another brigade to Ituri," Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba told a news conference after meeting President Joseph Kabila and three other vice presidents on Monday. "They will carry out investigations and apprehend those responsible for the killings," he said, without specifying when the troops would be deployed. --More 2219 Local Time 1919 GMT
