A UN report said on Thursday what appears to be five mass graves have been discovered in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where recent intercommunal violence has killed more than 260 people.

The UN's joint office for human rights has identified five "probable mass graves" in Blukwa Centre and Maze/Waliba in Ituri province during a fact-finding mission last month.

The troubled province is caught in a cycle of violence between the Hema and Lendu communities, cattle herders and farmers who have long fought over land – a conflict that intensified from December but has since calmed down.

Humanitarian groups say the violence has forced around 300,000 people from their homes.

"At least 263 people, including at least 91 women, have been killed; 29 others injured and 120 localities and villages have been looted and destroyed" in Djugu territory since December 2017, the UN report said.

"The majority of the victims are ethnic Hema," it added.

Authorities in DRC said they had not been informed about the discovery.

"There is no mass grave to our knowledge," said Etienne Unega, interior minister for Ituri province.

"The UN's joint Office should make the report available to us that contains these allegations."

The UN mission in DRC, Monusco, on Wednesday said schools, markets, places of worship and health centres were reopening in Djugu territory, noting a "calming of the situation".

Hema herders and Lendu farmers have been locked in violence in Ituri for decades, with tens of thousands killed between 1999 and 2003.

The violence was so great in 2003 it triggered Operation Artemis, a three-month operation by the European Union, its first military mission outside Europe.

It succeeded in the goal of avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe but fighting never came to a total halt.

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FOLLOW News24 Africa on Twitter and Facebook </s> A UN team in the town of Tshimbulu in Kasai Central province, DRC, where 15 of the mass graves were found. Photo: MONUSCO/Biliaminou Alao 19 April 2017  Raising alarm over increasing reports of serious human rights violations in the Kasai Central and Kasai Oriental provinces of Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations human rights chief underscored that the scale and nature of the allegations could warrant an investigation by an international mechanism, such as the International Criminal Court .

Start the conversation, or Read more at United Nations. </s> United Nations investigators have unearthed scores of mass graves in a conflict-plagued region of the Democratic Republic of Congo that top U.N. officials describe as a scene of “horror.”

The U.N. says the Congolese military dug the mass grave after killing over 100 people last month, a sign that the DRC’s violence and political turmoil will almost certainly get worse before it gets better.

On Wednesday, the U.N. announced that its investigators have confirmed the existence of 17 new mass graves sites in the DRC’s Kasai region, bring the tally up to 40 mass graves discovered in the past nine months. The most recent batch was unearthed after the Congolese military killed at least 114 people, including 41 children, in its campaign to uproot an insurgency by the Kamuina Nsapu militia.

Most civilians were reportedly killed in their homes as soldiers went door to door hunting militia members. The U.N. also recounted reports of government forces raping women and girls. The U.N. accused the Kamuina Nsapu militia of carrying out their own atrocities and forcibly recruiting hundreds of child soldiers into their ranks.

The discovery sheds new light on a deadly conflict in the Kasai region that has displaced hundreds of thousands and morphed into a serious threat to embattled DRC President Joseph Kabila’s grip on power. While the Kamuina Nsapu rebellion is rooted in local grievances, it quickly ignited a nationwide political powder keg as grievances pile up against Kabila. Kabila refused to step down after his constitutional term limit expired in December, prompting mass protests and political turmoil, while exacerbating the country’s dire economic situation.

“The discovery of yet more mass graves and the reports of continued violations and abuses highlight the horror that has been unfolding in the Kasais over the last nine months,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. If the national government isn’t serious about investigating the crimes, Hussein added, he would urge the International Criminal Court to take up the matter. The Congolese government denied any involvement in the mass graves, and instead blamed militias.

Since 1999, the U.N. has maintained a peacekeeping mission — MONUSCO — in the DRC. With some 22,000 personnel, it’s the U.N.’s largest. But given the sheer expanse of the country, it “has only minimal capacity to respond to civil unrest of widening conflict,” said Hans Hoebeke, a Congo expert with the International Crisis Group.

 

 The Kasai conflict garnered international attention last month after militias abducted and killed two U.N. experts, one American and one Swedish. Since the conflict first escalated in August, 2016, over 400 people have been killed. </s> U.N. investigators have discovered 17 new mass grave sites in central Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the total to 40 documented in an area where the army has clashed with a local militia, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at US News & World Report. </s> United Nations investigators have found 17 new mass graves in the Democratic Republic of Congo , in an area that has seen fighting between soldiers and members of a local armed group, according to the UN rights chief.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called the DRC's government to launch an investigation, threatening that the International Criminal Court would do so if authorities failed to take action.

Zeid said in a statement published by his office on Wednesday that he had reports that DRC soldiers had dug the graves after clashes with the Kamuina Nsapu militia in the central Kasai region in March.

"At least 74 people, including 30 children, were reported to have been killed by soldiers," in the clashes, he said, without giving details on the sources of his information.

During a separate incident in the provincial capital of Kananga last month, soldiers were reported to have shot dead at least 40 people and raped women and girls, Zeid said, again without saying who had made the reports.

Most of the victims were said to have been killed in their homes as soldiers went door to door looking for militia members, he added.

Fifteen of the newly confirmed sites are in the town of Tshimbulu, and two in Thsienke, a village near Kananga city.

The findings mean that the UN has now documented 40 mass grave sites and killings of more than 400 people in Kasai Central and Kasai Oriental provinces since last August.

"It is absolutely vital that the government ... takes meaningful steps to ensure that there is [an]... independent investigation," Zeid said.

"Should there be no effective national investigation, I will not hesitate to urge ... an investigation by an international mechanism, including the International Criminal Court."

Evidence first

The government of the DRC said it would investigate the reports once it saw the evidence.

Lambert Mende, the government spokesman, said the UN team should pass its evidence to the justice department.

"Then we will start investigations," he added.

The government has previously denied that soldiers have used disproportionate force against militia members, who are often armed with machetes and homemade rifles, and said that the militia had dug other mass graves.

Kasai is the focus of the fight against the Kamuina Nsapu militia since August, when security forces killed its leader. The militia has been fighting largely to avenge his death.

The violence has become the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose decision to stay in power after his mandate ran out in December has stoked lawlessness across the vast central African nation.

The government said last week that it had returned the body of the armed group's leader to his village, which had been one of the militia's key demands.

However, it was unclear whether this gesture would sooth tensions after such extensive killings.

The Kamwina Nsapu have been accused of recruiting child soldiers, and of attacking public authorities, schools and churches.



Hundreds of people have been killed and 200,000 displaced, according to the UN. </s> DAKAR, April 19 (Reuters) - U.N. investigators have discovered 17 mass grave sites in central Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the total to 40 documented in an area where the army has clashed with a local militia, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The sites were reportedly dug by Congolese soldiers after fighting with the Kamuina Nsapu militia in Kasai Central province in late March, a U.N. statement said.

"At least 74 people, including 30 children, were reported to have been killed by soldiers as a result of these clashes," the statement said.

A government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government has previously denied that soldiers have used disproportionate force against militia members and said the militia had dug the graves.

The Kamuina Nsapu uprising has become the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose decision to stay in power after his mandate ran out in December stoked lawlessness in the vast central African nation.

More than 400 people have been killed in fighting in Kasai Central since last August, when Congolese forces killed the tribal militia's leader Kamuina Nsapu, escalating the conflict. </s> UN investigators in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have confirmed the existence of at least 17 further mass graves in Kasai Central Province, which has been the scene of clashes between soldiers and members of a local militia known as Kamuina Nsapu. This brings to 40 the number of mass graves documented by the […]Source : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...
The United Nations reports the discovery of five "likely" mass graves in Blukwa Centre and Maze/Waliba in Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo.