United Nations investigators have arrived in the town of Bunia, where as many as 350 bodies have died in recent ethnic clashes. The two-man team of human rights experts is expected to stay at least 10 days if conditions in the field permit.
Almost 40 000 refugees fleeing fighting in Bunia have sought safety in northern Kivu in neighbouring Zaire.
Gianfranco Rutigliano, representative of the UN Childrens Fund (Unicef) in DRC, said from Bunia that two in five of the refugees were aged under 15.
Militiamen of the Union of Congolese Patriots, from the Hema ethnic group, retook control of Bunia earler this month after violent clashes with militias of the rival Lendu group.
Rutigliano said the situation in Bunia was tense. ”Humanitarian aid workers cannot have any access to local people,” he said: ”Because it is impossible to make the zone secure our action in displaced persons’ camps, where people are packed in, cannot go beyond visits. It is out of the question to organise activities such as supplying food.”
Since May 4, between 300 and 350 bodies — mostly civilians — have been discovered in and around Bunia, victims of ethnic fighting for control of the town, UN spokesperson Isabel Abric said.
She warned that the final death count would be much higher after the discovery on Friday of mass graves in two neighbourhoods raised fears of a wider massacre.
UN observers found many homes burned to the ground and mass graves during a reconnaissance mission in two neighbourhoods of Bunia.
”We have received information about new corpses, but in a place that we cannot reach because of landmines,” Abric said.
On Friday, a further five wounded arrived by foot in Bunia and were admitted to hospital, where a total of 76 people were receiving treatment for wounds sustained in the fighting, she added.
Most of Bunia’s 350 000 residents have fled since the bloodletting began around three weeks ago, pitting a rebel faction controlled by the Hema minority against the Lendu majority.
There has been little actual fighting since May 12 but the streets were still patrolled by the Hema-led Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) youth. Though tense, the city was calm on Saturday, Abric said.
She said few residents had returned to the city by Saturday, and that many houses were standing empty on the city outskirts.
Some 17 000 people have taken shelter in two refugee camps set up near UN headquarters and near the airport.
The UN deputy secretary general in charge of peacekeeping operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, is expected on Sunday in Bunia, where the UN is mulling the creation of an increased force, she added. – Sapa-AFP