U.N. investigates reports of cannibalism in Congo
By Finbarr O'Reilly
KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) - The United Nations has launched an investigation into reports of cannibalism by Rwandan Hutu rebels hiding in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman said Thursday.
Thousands of the rebels are in eastern Congo, where many of them fled after taking part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and their presence in the volatile region is seen as the main threat to Congo's fragile peace process.
"We are opening an investigation into these reports of cannibalism," Sebastien Lapierre, a spokesman for the U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said in Bukavu, an eastern lakeside town on the Congo-Rwanda border.
Lapierre said there had been an attack by Hutu rebels on Kanyola, about 40 miles southwest of Bukavu, and that the United Nations was sending human rights officials and military observers to the area to investigate the reports.
"There are a lot of wild rumors and speculation here, but if it's true, then it's a very serious matter," he said, adding the rebel Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, was not known for acts of cannibalism.
"They kill and rape and pillage, but they are not normally into ritual killings like the drugged-up kids in Ituri," Lapierre said, referring to the northeastern Congolese region where ritual cannibalism is believed to have taken place.
"We'll conduct an objective investigation, but if there was cannibalism here, it would be the first known case in this province," he said.
A Congolese human rights organization said late Wednesday the rebels raided a village in South Kivu province.
"The Interahamwe attacked Kanyola Monday and burned 130 homes. Three people were killed and eaten in a plantation just outside Kanyola," the African Center for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights said in a statement.
The FDLR rebels include former Rwandan army soldiers and "Interahamwe" militiamen who took part in the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed.
Rwanda invaded Congo in 1998 to hunt down those responsible for the genocide, sparking a regional war that drew in seven African countries and killed at least 3 million people before it officially ended when the main belligerents signed a peace deal last year.
Under the deal, Congo's new army has been charged with disarming foreign fighters, but many of the Hutus remain in the jungles and mountains of Congo's North and South Kivu provinces, along the Rwandan border.
02/19/04 11:42 ET
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