| More nastiness in a part of the world we don't pay enough attention to. |
An official in Kaniola, where the attacks occurred, told Okapi radio that the Saturday night incidents also resulted in about 20 injuries and several kidnappings. ‘The FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) attacked Kaniola around 11:00 pm (2200 GMT) (on Saturday).
‘They killed them with knives. There are 12 dead,’ local governor Celestin Cibalonza told AFP after visiting the scene.
Villagers contacted by AFP said the death toll was 15 but added that those kidnapped may also have been killed. No independent verification was immediately available. ‘A young girl who was able to escape from them this morning said that they had killed three hostages,’ Oscar Zihaliwa, member of a local association of village elders, told AFP by phone. The girl also said rebels had kidnapped at least 18 villagers.
Kaniola, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the provincial capital Bukavu, has for years been the target of attacks and kidnappings.
The incident comes after the Congolese army, backed by United Nations troops, launched an offensive against rebels in the area in April in which at least one rebel camp was destroyed. ‘It was a reprisal. They targeted houses. The victims included the father of a girl kidnapped by the FDLR and recently freed by the army,’ said Zihaliwa. ‘They silently entered the house. They started by strangling some victims before stabbing them to stop them raising the alarm,’ he said. ‘After the massacre they fled towards the hills.’
Rwandan Hutu rebels -- numbered by the United Nations at more than 10,000 -- have been operating in the forests and mountains of eastern DRC ever since the genocide of at least 800,000 mostly minority Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.