KIWANJA, Congo — Villagers who fled fighting in this rebel-held town trickled home Thursday to find the bodies of more than a dozen men in civilian clothes in and around mud huts — and accused rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s forces of the slayings.
Nkunda’s men wrested control of Kiwanja on Wednesday following heavy fighting with a pro-government militia called Mai Mai, one of many signs that the conflict is spreading in eastern Congo and a fragile cease-fire is close to unraveling.
The villagers said rebels had killed unarmed civilians suspected of supporting the Mai Mai, but the rebels said the dead were militia fighters who had been armed.
A U.N. official said Kiwanja was in fact subjected to two rounds of terror: First the Mai Mai arrived and killed those they accused of supporting Nkunda’s rebels; then Nkunda’s rebels stormed in, killing men they charged were loyal to the Mai Mai.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
Peace talks slated today
Human Rights Watch said U.N. peacekeepers nearby had been unable to protect the villagers. It said at least 20 people were killed and another 33 wounded during the battle for the town.
“The U.N. should not leave these defenseless people to be slaughtered by fighters on both sides,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior Africa researcher for the rights group.
North of Kiwanja, rebels captured an army base in Nyanzale on Thursday after fighting with the army, the U.N. said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called for an immediate cease-fire and urged the armed groups involved to find a political solution.
Ban was flying to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi to attend an African Union summit today aimed at bringing peace to the region.
Congo President Joseph Kabila is expected to attend, along with Rwanda President Paul Kagame, who wields strong influence with Nkunda’s rebels.
Dozens of militia groups operate in the remote terraced valleys and hills of eastern Congo, a lawless region that the government and a 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission have struggled to bring under control for years.
Among the armed groups are the Mai Mai and ethnic Hutu insurgents from Rwanda who fled to Congo after helping carry out Rwanda’s 1994 bloody genocide.
In Kiwanja on Thursday, an AP reporter was led by frightened, whispering residents to huts where she counted the bodies of 16 people — covered with blankets or sheets — in one small part of Kiwanja. All but two were men, the residents said. None appeared armed.
“Came and shot them”
Chorade Muhimdo, 38, said residents who stayed in Kiwanja despite rebel orders to leave were inside their homes when rebels “came and shot them.”
“There’s no reason,” he said. “Once they think you are Mai Mai, they have to kill you.”
One woman, 47-year-old Ajeni Niragasigwa, said rebels killed her 17-year-old son while he was trying to cross a rebel checkpoint.
“They came to kill the people,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “They did not come to protect.”
Nkunda told The Associated Press that his mission justifies the suffering of some 250,000 forced from their homes since he launched an offensive Aug. 28. He also suggested that Congo’s army was being bolstered by foreign militias from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
The conflict is fueled by festering ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 slaughter of half a million Tutsis in Rwanda, and Congo’s civil wars from 1996 to 2002, which drew neighboring countries in a rush to plunder Congo’s mineral wealth.
