Geneva — On Friday, the UN detailed more than 250 "extrajudicial or targeted killings" in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Kasai region from mid-March to mid-June, counting dozens of children among the dead. The findings, based on interviews with refugees from Kasai who had fled to Angola, blamed state agents for the murders of seven children. The refugees gave harrowing accounts of the violence in the region, which the UN warned had taken on "an increasing and disturbing ethnic dimension". Victims recounted mutilations, including of a seven-year-old boy whose fingers were cut off, and an attack on a hospital in the village of Cinq where 90 people were killed, some because they were too injured to escape a raging fire. Aside from government troops, the UN blamed a state-backed militia called the Bana Mura, as well as the anti-government Kamwina Nsapu militia for a range of atrocities. "Survivors have spoken of hearing the screams of people being burned alive, of seeing loved...
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