More than 20 civilians, mostly women and children, have been massacred in a horrific manner in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), French military officials in the troubled region said on Monday.
An AFP reporter saw a dozen bodies, many of which were horribly mutilated with a boy decapitated and a woman who had her ovaries ripped out and her throat cut open, in the village of Nizi, some 40 kilometres northeast of Bunia.
French militiary officials who refused to give their names said 22 bodies had been counted on the marketplace and at the entrance to the village.
It was difficult to to determine which ethnic group the victims were from, but Nizi is in the middle of Hema terroritory, the minority group in the Ituri region. Hema and majority Lendu militias, spurred by deep-seated ethnic hatred, have fought fierce battles in the last four years in the resource-rich northeastern DRC, leaving by various counts up to 50 000 people dead.
The conflict led to the deployment last month of an international peacekeeping force led by the French to the main city of Bunia, which has so far only been able to secure the city and the airport.
A national unity government was established last week in Kinshasa in a bid to end five years of Africa’s bloodiest civil war, with more than 2,5-million victims from fighting, starvation and disease. – Sapa-AFP