UN to send experts to probe DRC violence

GENEVA — The UN Human Rights Council yesterday decided to send a group of experts to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help investigate an explosion of deadly violence in the Kasai region.

A council resolution called on the UN rights office to dispatch a team of international experts to help Kinshasa investigate gross rights violations in the region, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape and the use of child soldiers.

More than 3 300 people have been killed in eight months of spiralling unrest in the central Kasai region, the papal envoy to the country said earlier this week. About 1.3 million people have fled their homes, according to UN figures.

The resolution adopted by the 47-member council fell short of a call from the UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein for a fullyfledged “independent, international investigation” following “horrific attacks” in the region.

The European Union, supported by the United States and others, had initially presented a draft resolution urging such an international probe.

But faced with harsh opposition from Kinshasa the Western countries opted for a compromise, withdrawing their resolution and joining one presented by Tunisia on behalf of a group of African countries. That text calls for the team of international experts, including ones from the region, “to collect and preserve information to determine the facts and circumstances . . . in cooperation with the (DRC) government”.

The experts must forward their conclusions to the DRC authorities, the resolution says, stressing that “the perpetrators of deplorable crimes are all accountable to the judicial authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo”.

It calls on Zeid to present a comprehensive report on the team’s findings in the council’s main annual session in March next year.