OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 4.00pm.
THE incidence of ethnic murder is rising in northwest Rwanda and is stoking conflict in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, human rights organisation African Rights said on Tuesday.
The organisation warned that the ethnic killings could destabilise the region, and that conflict in the DRC, led by Tutsi rebels, was provoked, in part, by the interweaving of political and military events in the Kivu region and Rwanda.
The Masisi area north of Goma, the North Kivu capital, is populated by ethnic Hutus of Rwandan origin and is the largest base of the Rwandan rebels, the report said. Masisi is frequently the theatre of clashes between DRC rebels and Hutu militiamen who are allied with Rwandan former soldiers and traditional Mai-Mai warriors. Some 3000 Hutu militiamen are thought to be hiding out in Kivu forests after fleeing Rwanda for their role in the 1994 genocide.
A major attack on Goma on September 14 was launched from Masisi, and a new attack is feared, the report said.