as the killings took place, a contingent of about 100 United Nations peacekeepers was less than a mile away, struggling to understand what was happening outside the gates of its base. The peacekeepers were short of equipment and men, United Nations officials said, and they were focusing on evacuating frightened aid workers and searching for a foreign journalist who had been kidnapped. Already overwhelmed, officials said, they had no intelligence capabilities or even an interpreter who could speak the necessary languages.The peacekeepers said they had no idea that the killings were taking place until it was all over.
This --or peacekeepers raping refugee children--is of course how every UN peacekeeping mission ends, but it's good of the NYT to notice.
