From earlier UN warns situation in DR Congo reaching 'breaking...

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    From earlier

    UN warns situation in DR Congo reaching 'breaking point'

    http://www.dw.com/en/un-warns-situation-in-dr-congo-reaching-breaking-point/a-42808193


    "Commenting on this most recent incident, local army spokesman Jules Ngongo, said: "It was a case of reprisals by the two communities. According to our information, there were cases of people being decapitated." Ngongo said he could not yet provide an accurate death toll.

    Others, like Alfred Ndrabu of the Catholic church's Justice and Peace commission in Ituri, cited witnesses who claimed the attack had been carried out by the Lendu and their allies. He said the Lendu had been initially repulsed by security forces but that they "returned with reinforcements, which was when they perpetrated the carnage." He claims 49 bodies have been recovered so far.

    Jean-Bosco Lalo, an activist in Bunia, said 43 people had been killed. He did not say who initiated the attack, which went on through the night into Friday, but described the situation thus: "Only this morning could we start to count the dead. We saw burnt and mutilated bodies."

    "After years of sporadic low-level violence, the last two months have seen more than 100 people killed, hundreds of homes burnt and 200,000 people forced to flee the area.
    More than 28,000 displaced Ituri residents, many of them women and children, have fled across the DRC's border into Uganda in recent weeks.


    The eastern DRC has registered a sharp increase in militia activity near its borders with Uganda and Rwanda over the past year."

    "The UN says that some 10 million Congolese citizens are currently in need of humanitarian aid, 4.5 million of whom have been displaced by growing violence."

    "The recent clashes in the region are part of a larger pattern of unrest in Congo which has been partially blamed on DRC President Joseph Kabila's refusal to step down after his term of office legally ended in December 2016."

    "The United Nations and others, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), have warned that the situation in the DRC has reached "a breaking point.""
 
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