DRC massacres genocide?
2003-05-13 20:08
New York - Massacres committed in Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could amount to genocide, the prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunals, Carla del Ponte, said Tuesday.
"Our evaluation, from what we know, it could be a genocide," she said in answer to a reporter's question.
Del Ponte did not say which of the warring factions in Ituri might be guilty of genocide, a crime defined by international law. She declined to say more.
Del Ponte is prosecutor for the ad hoc tribunals for crimes committed during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and during the civil wars which followed the break-up of Yugoslavia. There is no such tribunal for DRC.
Inter-ethnic fighting has claimed more than 50 000 lives and forced at least half a million people to flee their homes in Ituri in recent years, according to several estimates.
Bunia, the capital of Ituri, lies on the western shores of Lake Albert, which forms part of the frontier between DRC and Uganda. The town is about 320km north of the border with Rwanda. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA