List of atrocities in DRC ‘beggars belief’, says UN human rights team
Geneva — Rebels and government troops in the Democtatic Republic of Congo (DRC) have committed atrocities including mass rape, cannibalism and the dismemberment of civilians, according to testimony published on Tuesday by a team of UN human rights experts who said the world must pay heed. The team investigating a conflict in the Kasai region of the DRC told the UN Human Rights Council last week that they suspected all sides were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their detailed 126-page report catalogued gruesome attacks committed in the conflict, which erupted in late 2016, involving the Kamuina Nsapu and Bana Mura militias and DRC’s armed forces, the FARDC. The testimony included boys being forced to rape their mothers, little girls being told witchcraft would allow them to catch bullets, and women forced to choose gang-rape or death. "What happened in the Kasai simply beggars description," DRC’s human rights minister Marie-Ange Mushobekwa told the Council. "One vic...
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