Forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda massacred at least 30 villagers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in January, the UN mission in the country (Monuc) reported on Wednesday. Monuc had gathered evidence that members of Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) “killed at least 30 civilians at Kalonge and in surrounding villages” between January 16 and 20, UN spokesperson Kemal Saiki said. He also accused government troops of murdering civilians in the region earlier in the month. “The CNDP elements are held to have committed these apparently premeditated acts in reprisals” against civilians who had sought refuge in an area controlled by a Mai Mai tribal militia hostile to Nkunda, Saiki told a press conference. Local authorities at the time told AFP that members of Nkunda’s CNDP killed more than 40 people near Kalonge and Nyamitaba, more than 60 kilometres northwest of the Nord-Kivu provincial capital Goma. The civilian administrator of Nyamitaba, Emmanuel Munyamariba, then said that CNDP forces chased the villagers “right into the fields and out to isolated homes in the bush” to kill them. News24.com
