CONGO: At least 1,000 people have been killed in ethnic violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations said yesterday, one day after the signing of an accord to end more than four years of war in the vast Central African country.
The massacres, which took place on Thursday in the northeastern region of Ituri, had claimed "at least one thousand victims", the UN mission in the DRC said in a statement sent to AFP's office in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
It said this information came from "witness accounts" of the massacres, which took place in the parish of Drodo and 14 neighbouring areas.
According to lists compiled by local leaders, 966 people were "summarily executed" in three hours of massacres, said the UN mission.
The UN mission said it had visited 49 seriously injured victims in a local hospital. Most had machete wounds and some had been hit by bullets. The team had also witnessed "20 mass graves, identifiable by traces of blood that were still fresh".
The UN mission said it would continue its investigations to identify those responsible for the bloodletting.
The violence came one day after the warring parties in the DRC signed a pact to end more than four years of warfare. The accord between the government, opposition parties and several rebel groups ended 19 months of tortuous peace negotiations.
It enabled President Joseph Kabila to issue on Friday a new constitution, which opens the way for a national unity government and the first democratic elections in the former Belgian colony for more than 40 years.
A commission, set up to try and bring peace to the Ituri region, began work on Saturday.
Earlier yesterday, Ugandan officers, who have troops stationed in Ituri, said between 350 and 400 members of the Hema ethnic community had been killed in attacks by members of the Lendu ethnic group.
Head of the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots Mr Thomas Lubanga confirmed the massacres and said more than 900 people had died. Mr Lubanga, whose rebels recently engaged in fighting against Ugandan troops in Ituri, accused the Ugandan army of taking part in the attacks.
But Gen Kale Kaihura, the commander of Ugandan troops in Ituri, rejected the claims, saying he had sent his men to the site of the massacres after receiving information from local chiefs.
Elsewhere in the DRC, weapons fire resounded yesterday afternoon in the town of Bukavu, the main centre in the eastern province of South Kivu.
A spokesman for the rebel group that controls Bukavu, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, said it was a "restrained" attack by local militia in protest at the arrest of their leader on Thursday.