DR Congo militia killed 800 in 18 months: UN
A notorious militia has killed nearly 800 civilians in eastern DR Congo since the start of this past year, the UN said on Mon, adding that the attacks may total crimes against humanity.
The Islamist ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) has committed “widespread, systematic and extremely brutal” rights abuses, according to a written report by the UN’s Joint Human Rights Workplace (UNJHRO) in DR Congo.
Between January 1 last year and January 1 this year, the article documented the eliminating of 496 civilians - 142 women, 25 children and 329 men.
“A lot of the victims were killed using bladed weapons or were shot,” it added.
Over that period, people rights cases attributed to the ADF - killings, abductions, forced labour and attacks against hospitals and academic institutions - rose by 67 percent weighed against the previous year.
The bloodshed has continued this season, the report said, with 297 persons killed between February 1 and June 30. “Entire families have already been hacked to death,” it said, adding that generally in most attacks there was “a clear intention to leave no survivors”.
“Under international rules, the human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian legislation committed by ADF combatants could constitute, by their aspect and scope, crimes against humanity and war crimes,” it said.
The ADF is among a large number of militia groups operating in eastern DR Congo, a legacy of both Congo wars in the 1990s that taken in neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda.
The group started in neighbouring Uganda but moved to DRC in 1995.
In the 2000s, it has centered on establishing a “business network” with persons in the security apparatus of DR Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania, the article said.
Last year, the Congolese army launched a plan against the group that resulted in an “intensification of deadly episodes” by the ADF, the UN report said.
It said the attacks also intensified partly due to the redeployment of the secureness forces of the UN’s DR Congo objective MONUSCO.
The report said DR Congo forces had also committed human being rights violations, including the extrajudicial killing of eight civilians.
