United Nations hits out at surge in extra-judicial ‘executions’ in Congo

KINSHASA: The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday reported a surge in summary “executions” in the country, notably in the southern Kasai region.

In 2017, “state agents” carried out 1,176 extra-judicial killings, “including at least 89 women and 213 children,” the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUSCO) said in an annual report on human rights violations in the DRC.

Such killings have tripled over the past two years, MONUSCO said, adding that it condemned the increase.

The armed forces accounted for nearly twothirds — 64 percent — of extra-judicial killings by state agents, it said.

Across the country, a total of 6,497 violations and abuses — committed not just by state agents but also by armed groups — were recorded in 2017.

This was a rise of more than 25 percent over 2016, which itself saw a 30 percent rise over 2015.

A sprawling, mineral-rich country in central Africa, the DRC is in the grip of several conflicts, including political and ethnic unrest as well as violence by militia groups.

The rise in arbitrary killings last year is mainly explained by the “persistent crisis” in three provinces constituting the Kasai region, where at least 752 people were executed, the report said.

Violence in Kasai erupted after a tribal chieftain known as the Kamwina Nsapu, who rebelled against the regime of President Joseph Kabila, was killed in August 2016.

More than 3,000 people have died and some 1.4 million have been displaced since then.

The Kamwina Nsapu’s militia was responsible for the death of at least 79 civilians, including seven women and nine children, the report said.

Another militia, the Bana Mura, sometimes operating with the support of army soldiers, killed at least 67 civilians, including nine women and 21 children, it added.

Two UN experts were killed last March while investigating violence in Kasai, where the United Nations has counted more than 80 mass graves.

The rise in extra-judicial killings comes as the government has cracked down on a number of anti-government demonstrations across the country.

Since December, Congolese people, about 300 per day, have been fleeing from the Mai Mai militias’ attacks in the Kivu region of the eastern part of DRC to the border area near the village of Nyakabande, western Uganda. (AFP)