KINSHASA, DR Congo
Around 300 people died in an attack on villagers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last week blamed on the M23 rebel group, government minister Julien Paluku said on Monday.
The government has been locked
in a months-long conflict with the notorious armed group M23 -- with the latest
violence coming just five days after a ceasefire was agreed between the rebels
and Congolese forces.
The army originally accused
the M23 insurgents of killing at least 50 civilians in Kishishe village in
eastern North Kivu province last week, before the government put the number of
dead at more than 100.
But Paluku and government
spokesman Patrick Muyaya laid out updated figures for the deadly attack during
a press briefing on Monday, citing data collated by civil society and
communities in the region.
"We are looking at around
300 deaths" of "people known to be regular inhabitants of
Kishishe," industry minister Paluku said, saying the victims had no
connection with militia groups.
"Every community has been
able to record the people who died from units in Kishishe and its
environs," said Paluku, who was governor of North Kivu province from 2007
to 2019.
"One community alone has
more than 105 deaths," he added.
The rebel group has denied it
was responsible and called the allegations "baseless" -- although it
said eight civilians were killed by "stray bullets" during clashes in
the village on November 29.
All the fatalities were
civilians and at least 17 believed to be children, Muyaya told reporters,
saying there were fatalities recorded from a church and a hospital.
The UN's peacekeeping mission
in DR Congo has led calls for an investigation after the government said 50
villagers had been massacred by a notorious armed group in the country's
troubled east.
Representatives for the United
States and European Union said the killings were potential war crimes, while
Human Rights Watch said UN troops should be deployed to protect survivors.
The government has said it is
difficult to confirm the data because the area is still under rebel control.
Muyaya said consolidation work
was underway to try and ascertain the full number of victims.
Residents who spoke to AFP by
telephone said they had been ordered by the rebels to bury the victims in mass
graves.
The March 23 movement, or M23,
is a predominantly Congolese Tutsi rebel group that was dormant for years.
It took up arms again in
November last year and seized the town of Bunagana on the border with Uganda in
June.
After a brief period of calm,
it went on the offensive again in October.
Kinshasa accuses its smaller
neighbour Rwanda of providing M23 with support, something that UN experts and
US officials have also pointed to in recent months.
Kigali disputes the charge and
has accused Kinshasa of collusion with the FDLR -- a former Rwandan Hutu rebel
group established in the DRC after the genocide of the Tutsi community in 1994
in Rwanda.
Talks between the two
countries in the Angolan capital Luanda unlocked a truce agreement on November
23.
The ceasefire was scheduled to
take effect on November 25. It should also have been followed by a pullout by
the M23 two days later from territory it had seized, but this did not happen.
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