UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Suspected militiamen killed at least 14 U.N. peacekeepers and five Congolese soldiers in an attack on a United Nations base in eastern Congo on Thursday night, the U.N. mission said on Friday.

A further 53 U.N. troops were wounded, it said.

The mission, known as MONUSCO, said it was coordinating a joint response with the Congolese army as well as medical evacuations of the wounded from the base in North Kivu’s Beni territory.

Rival militia groups still control swathes of mineral-rich eastern Congo nearly a decade and a half after the official end of a 1998-2003 war that killed millions of people, most from hunger and disease.

Gilbert Kambale, the president of an activist group in Beni, said the U.N. soldiers targeted in the attack were Tanzanian. A U.N. official confirmed that information.