Six Red Cross workers have been shot and hacked to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The dead included a Swiss nurse, a Colombian, and four Congolese. It marked the single deadliest attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross in five years.
A Ugandan military patrol found the bodies of the six by their vehicles, 70 kilometres north of the town of Bunia, yesterday.
Some of the six had been shot; others had been both shot and slashed with machetes, said Mr Boni Mbaka, a UN official.
"It's very horrible. There were no survivors (so) it's difficult to say what happened," Mr Mbaka said.
The teams had been heading to a remote health centre with medicine. Colleagues had become alarmed yesterday afternoon after losing what been regular radio contact with the teams.
The killings occurred in Ituri province, which is under the control of the Congolese Liberation Front, a Ugandan-backed rebel group led by Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba.
The region has been plagued by fighting over control of rich grasslands. The fighting has subsided in recent months following peace talks.
However, humanitarian groups in the area frequently face accusations by one group or the other of being biased.