7 mass graves unearthed in DRC

2008-05-26 08:25

Kinshasa - Four more mass graves were unearthed on Saturday in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near a site where others containing about 100 bodies were discovered a day earlier, the United Nations said.

The new communal graves are said to contain the corpses of civilians, including children, although the UN Mission in the DRC (Monuc) had no initial figures on how many bodies were in the makeshift graves.

The new finds came after patrolling UN peacekeepers on Friday uncovered the first three communal graves, containing a total of about 100 corpses, on the outskirts of the eastern town of Maboya.

"The UN Mission in the DRC (Monuc) ... discovered on Saturday four new mass graves, bringing to seven the number found in the past 24 hours at Maboya," UN spokesperson Kemal Saiki said.

Maboya was situated in Nord-Kivu, about 200km north of the regional capital, Goma.

"The civilians were killed, either caught in the crossfire during heavy fighting, or summarily executed by the armed forces that occupied Maboya between 1996 and 2003," Saiki added.

Maboya, situated between the large commercial cities of Beni and Butembo, was considered a key strategic site, and occupied by several rebel groups and foreign forces over the past decade or more.

Monuc had said it did not yet have enough evidence to date the graves.

Despite the request of local inhabitants, the grave sites were never protected and there was never any serious investigation by the DRC authorities.

- AFP