Experts to scene will determine whether demonstrators shot by peacekeepers: UN official in DRC

UNITED NATIONS, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Investigators in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will be able to determine whether UN peacekeepers killed civilians, the top UN official in the country said on Wednesday.

"We can trace our weapons," Khassim Diagne, the acting head of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the country, told correspondents during a teleconference briefing from Kinshasa, DRC.

Diagne made the remarks after 15 people, including one peacekeeper and two United Nations police officers, were killed during protests targeting the UN peacekeeping mission since Monday in the northeastern province of North Kivu, and some local media reported the protesters were shot by peacekeepers.

"If it is a UN shooting, we will know," the acting representative said, adding that forensic specialists from the DRC capital city were being dispatched to the provincial capital to investigate whether peacekeepers have fired into demonstrators.

"If we had shot ... it would have been a disaster because there were thousands of people climbing the walls and getting into the compound," Diagne said of the attack in Goma, capital of North Kivu.

According to the official, there were warning shots fired in the air to disperse the protesters, which he said could not do the trick.