...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
after a spate of killings in the region, a UN rights group has said.
"There are more than 50 mass graves, as well as common and individual graves that we have identified" in Yumbi in western Mai-Ndombe province, said Abdoul Aziz Thioye, director of the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) in DR Congo following a joint fact-finding mission with local authorities.
"This suggests that the number (of deaths) is quite high because a communal grave depending on size may contain five, ten bodies" or even "one hundred bodies or four times more", said Thioye on Friday.
The army chief in western DRC, General Fall Sikabwe, told AFP an investigation had begun.
"They have killed soldiers and coppers, taking their weapons to slaughter with," he said, giving no further details about the killings.
Earlier this month, the UN said at least 890 people were killed during three days of inter-communal festivities in the region.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement on January 16 that the UN office had been informed by "credible sources" that the people were killed between December 16 and 18 in four villages in Yumbi.
The violence appears to have been rooted in a longstanding rivalry between the Banunu and Batende ethnic groups, sparked when Banunu tribespeople buried a traditional chief on Batende land on the night of December 13.
Around 465 houses and building were then burned down or pillaged, including two primary schools, a health centre, a market and the office of the national elections commission, the UN rights office said.
The UN refugee agency said earlier this month that 16,000 people had fled from the villages into the neighbouring Republic of Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville.