Five villagers were killed and numerous others wounded when soldiers attacked their homes in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), United Nations-sponsored radio said on Tuesday.
The attack took place on September 5 at Monoli II, a small village in Isangi district, about 250km west of Kisangani, capital of Orientale province.
Radio Okapi did not say where the soldiers came from but broadcast witness accounts that they had looted the village before setting fire to its houses.
General Joseph Padiri, who heads military operations in Orientale province, told Agence France-Presse by telephone that an inquiry was under way ”to determine the circumstances of these incidents”, but did not confirm the death toll.
The Central African country went through a bloody civil and regional war between 1998 and 2003 and is still plagued by violence — in the eastern provinces far from the capital Kinshasa in particular.
Last week the UN’s top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, was in Kinshasa and lamented the ongoing violence and widespread impunity in the DRC.
He said that though things had improved with the peace process that led to multiparty elections in July, the Congolese people were still suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, especially in the east. — Sapa-AFP