Refugees accuse DRC troops of killing civilians

LUSAKA — Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government forces have been killing civilians in an insurgency-hit region, prompting the latest influx of refugees into northern Zambia, a senior UN official said, citing accounts of asylum seekers.

Zambia fears a looming humanitarian crisis after more than 6 000 refugees fleeing turmoil in the DRC entered its territory in one month.

Pierrine Aylara, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) chief representative in Zambia, told Reuters the latest asylum seekers had said they were fleeing Congolese government forces.

“It is the government of the DRC that is said to be persecuting its own people by killing, maiming civilians and torching houses, as well as committing rape and looting food stored in granaries,” Aylara said.

Thousands of people have been killed and more than one million forced to flee their homes in the DRC’s eastern Kasai region since the start of an insurrection nearly a year ago by the Kamuina Nsapu militia. Kamuina Nsapu is demanding the withdrawal of military forces from Kasai.

But UN monitors noted in a report that the conflict has shifted away from an insurrection of a specific community towards a wider upheaval far beyond its initial confines.

A rebel group known as Elema was fighting the government mainly with machetes, bows and arrows in Congo’s Haut Katanga and Tanganyika provinces, Aylara said.

“The group is not targeting civilians and aims to protect them, but is rather targeting government soldiers, the police as well as government establishments,” she said.

– Nampa-Reuters