REBELS massacred 40 civilians in a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo on December 31, Zimbabwe’s army said in a statement on Friday. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the report, which said the slaughter occurred at Kataki village west of Manono in Shaba province. “On the night of December 31 the rebels and their Rwandan allies assembled the villagers with the view of politicising them but the locals refused to co-operate,” the statement said. “This incensed the rebels, who then force-marched everybody into a church” and shot them dead.” A ceasefire was signed in August, supposedly ending a year-long war pitting President Laurent Kabila and his allies in Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. But each side regularly accuses the other of violations.