“More than 7,000 compatriots” mainly civilians have been killed since last month in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo due to the ongoing armed struggle in the country.
The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has captured the main cities of Goma and Bukavu with large swathes rich in mineral located in eastern DRC.
“The security situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels,” Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, saying since January, “the deaths of more than 7,000 compatriots” had been registered.
Tuluka said the deaths include “more than 2,500 bodies buried without being identified,” she said, adding that another 1,500 bodies were still in the morgue.
She said that “for the moment… we have not yet been able to identify all of these people,” adding that “there is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead”.
The M23 movement is supported by some 4,000 Rwandan soldiers, according to UN experts, now controls large tracts of eastern DRC, a troubled region rich in natural resources.
It is advancing rapidly, thus making thousands to flee.
The M23 fighters seized the South Kivu provincial capital, Bukavu, more than a week ago, after it seized Goma, the capital of North Kivu and the main city in the country’s east, last month.
She said said more than 3,000 people had been killed in Goma alone.
AFP
