Over 200 suspected witches have been hacked to death in villages in northeastern Congo, a senior army official said tonight.
Brigadier Henry Tumukunde said diseases are being blamed on witchcraft and newcomers uprooted by war are called witches.
His comments come in the wake of a UNICEF and the World Health Organisation report which says every facet of society in Congo has collapsed.
The killings started on June 15th and began in Aru, but they spread deep inside northeastern Congo.
Ugandan troops have been sent back to Aru district to stop the killings and arrest suspected killers.
Mr Tumukunde said diseases endemic to the region were being blamed on witchcraft but noted that drugs to treat the diseases have not been available since the war broke out three years ago.
Uganda and Rwanda joined forces in August 1998 in support of a rebellion seeking to oust President Laurent Kabila.
"The war forced people to move to other areas, and the internally displaced were the targets of local villagers, who accused them of witchcraft," Mr Tumukunde said.
In a report released jointly today by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, experts said after a recent 12-day visit to Congo, "every facet of society - whether human rights or economy, education or water and sanitation, housing or social care - has collapsed."
The 10-person mission blamed "decades of state and external looting of national resources" and war for pushing "Congolese households over the brink".
PA