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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
DRC: Team investigating massacre travels to Bunia
NAIROBI, 16 April 2003 (IRIN) - A UN team charged with investigating the massacre of Hema people in Ituri District, northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), travelled on Wednesday from Kinshasa to Bunia, the principal town in Ituri, Patricia Tome, reports and information officer for the UN Mission to the DRC, MONUC, said.
She said that the team, made up of representatives from MONUC and from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, would visit the village of Drodro and 14 surrounding localities, some 70 km north of Bunia, where Lendu people allegedly killed their victims on 3 April.
"The investigation may take a minimum of two weeks," she told IRIN, adding that OHCHR forensic experts should be in Bunia next week.
A MONUC observer mission that visited Drodro soon after the killings saw 21 mass graves and was given a list by local church leaders and survivors of 996 people they said had died.
Tome said the investigation by the 15-strong UN team should reveal exactly what had happened.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, has said the perpetrators could go before the new International Criminal Court in The Hague, set up to tackle cases of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
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