Ethnic cleansing fears as 250 people massacred in Democratic Republic of Congo

Unrest: Traffic on the Kasai river has been slowed amid instability in the region
JUNIOR D. KANNAH/AFP/Getty Images
Sebastian Mann4 August 2017

More than 250 people including 62 children have been massacred in the Democratic Republic of Congo amid fears of ethnic cleansing.

UN human rights investigators say survivors speak of hearing “the screams of people being burned alive” as militia groups sweep across the country.

The UN said the killers were backed by Congolese security officials. Human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein urged Congo's government to "act now to prevent such violence from tipping into wider ethnic cleansing."

The investigators based their new report on interviews in June of 96 people who fled Congo's Kasai province into neighboring Angola over the three previous months.

Photos showed survivors with dismembered limbs and deep scars. In a statement, the U.N. human rights chief described accounts of "the screams of people being burned alive" and others who were "cut down."

The report provides a snapshot of the violence that erupted in the once-calm region a year ago. The U.N. has estimated the existence of 80 mass graves there. At least 1.3 million people have been internally displaced, and at least 40,000 have fled to Angola.

Violence in the Kasai region by the Kamwina Nsapu militia began last August with the killing of a regional tribal leader who had defied the government of President Joseph Kabila. Access for U.N. investigators to the region has been difficult, and security concerns skyrocketed after the murder of two U.N. experts in the Kasais in March.

Based on the accounts from people who fled between March and June, the new report counted 251 killings, attributing 150 of them to the Bana Mura and another 79 to the Kamwina Nsapu. Government forces were blamed for another 22.

The Catholic church has estimated more than 3,300 people have died in the fighting. The U.N. human rights office, which follows a strict methodology, has estimated the total death toll at over 500.

Additional reporting by AP

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