UN says 70 people hacked to death in Congo

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Via Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-70-people-hacked-death-congo-114220260.html

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo says that at least 70 people were killed in the Masisi territory of troubled eastern Congo.

In a statement, the U.N. said that the majority of the victims were hacked to death with machetes.

A peacekeeping mission team is now on the ground to verify the allegations. The U.N. did not specify when the attack in the villages of Nyamaboko I and II occurred.

In New York, United Nations spokesman Martin Nesirky said the U.N. mission is "concerned."

Masisi, a mineral-rich area of North Kivu province in eastern Congo, has been in the crosshairs of Congo's conflict for years. Numerous armed groups are active there.

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The Congolese government says the military has killed 208 rebels in a month of clashes with a Uganda-based group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Government spokesman Lambert Mende said on Friday that the country’s armed forces also lost 22 soldiers during the offensive against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

Mende added that the military had destroyed the group's headquarters during the onslaught.

ADF rebels were blamed for massacring some 21 people in December 2013 in eastern Congo.

Meanwhile, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, said in a statement issued on Thursday that at least 70 men and women had been executed in the resource-rich province of North Kivu.

"The reports received by MONUSCO suggest that the summary executions were allegedly committed mainly by armed groups to spread terror among the population. The majority of the victims were killed with machete," MONUSCO said.

A spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping force said the killings were carried out in late January and early February in the Nyamaboko villages I and II.

MONUSCO said it was in the process of verifying the reports about the mass executions in the area, vowing to “spare no efforts to neutralize all the armed groups responsible for such acts.”  ...
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