Irish Times: The World Must Act - Democratic Republic of Congo

[TomSea]

The world must act
Democratic Republic of Congo

Even by the standards of the past two decades in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a civil war claimed more than three million lives, emerging reports of the scale and brutality of ongoing violence in the central Kasai region make for horrifying reading. In a report drawing on months of research in Kasai, a remote region where aid agencies have relatively little presence, the Catholic Church last week estimated that Congolese security forces and a militia fighting them have killed at least 3,383 people there since last October. The UN had previously put the death toll at about 400.

The conflict began last August, when the army killed Kamuina Nsapu, the leader of a militia he named after himself. He had wanted the military to withdraw from the region. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN’s human rights chief, says Congolese authorities created and armed another militia to fight Kamuina Nsapu. Hussein told the UN Human Rights Council the government-linked militia “shot dead, hacked or burned to death, and mutilated hundreds of villagers, as well as destroying entire villages.” They had cut off toddlers’ limbs and stabbed pregnant women, he said.

The UN has responded in recent days by opening an investigation into the killings in Kasai.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-world-must-act-1.3134458