United Nations: The UN Security Council has given a green light for peacekeepers to use surveillance drones in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after weeks of delay over concerns of Russia, China and Rwanda about the use of aerial spy equipment.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote to the 15-member council late last month to advise that peacekeepers in Congo planned to use unmanned aerial systems “to enhance situational awareness and to permit timely decision-making” in dealing with a nine-month insurgency by M23 rebels in the mineral-rich east.
In a response to Ban, the president of the council for January, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Masood Khan, said the body had taken note of the plans for the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo to use drones – effectively approving the proposal.
But the council also noted that it would be a trial use “in line with the Secretariat’s intention to use assets to enhance situational awareness, if available, on a case-by case basis,” Khan wrote in a January 22 letter that was released on Thursday.
He wrote that the Democratic Republic of Congo operation would be “without prejudice to the ongoing consideration by relevant United Nations bodies of legal, financial and technical implications of the use of unmanned aerial systems.”
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