Rival armed groups may have killed hundreds of civilians in massacres and other “incomprehensibly vicious” attacks in eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), senior UN officials said yesterday.
The violence is focused in North Kivu near the border with Rwanda, where warring groups have targeted villages seen as supporting their opponents, while the national army has been diverted to fight rebel movement M23.
UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay said allegations of hundreds of killings were still being verified, but preliminary investigations suggested that a large number of people, mainly women and children, had been slaughtered.
“The sheer viciousness of these murders is beyond comprehension,” she said. – (Reuters)