KIBATI, Congo — Rebels and pro-government militiamen executed civilians last week in two waves of terror that the top U.N envoy to Congo said Saturday amount to war crimes — ones that highlight the inability of undermanned U.N. peacekeepers to protect civilians.
Meanwhile, Congo’s army advanced toward rebel lines Saturday, with renewed fighting near the provincial capital of Goma threatening a fragile cease-fire.
Fighting broke out Friday near Kibati, about 6 miles north of Goma. By Saturday morning, the army had moved more than half a mile north into a no man’s land that had been unpatrolled since the rebels called a cease-fire 10 days ago, after routing the army.
U.N. envoy Alan Doss said “war crimes that we cannot tolerate” were committed at Kiwanja by rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s fighters and by Mai Mai militiamen supporting the government.
U.N. investigators on Friday visited 11 graves containing what villagers said were 26 bodies, said U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the death toll could be higher.
“We are getting reports of more than 50 dead, but we are still in the process of confirming that information,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press.
Van den Wildenberg and military spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said it appeared the rebels committed many more executions than the militia.
U.N. peacekeepers have a well-established base in Kiwanja, about 50 miles north of Goma, but it has 120 soldiers in the town of 30,000 to 50,000.
They were pinned down under crossfire for some of the first day of the killings Tuesday and were hampered because militiamen were hiding in houses among civilians, Dietrich told The Associated Press.
Peacekeepers also were trying to deter rebel attacks on two other towns, Nyanzale and Kikuku, on Wednesday when the killings in Kiwanja continued, he said.
Thousands more refugees were on the move again Saturday. Some have been on the run for weeks, hefting bundles of belongings, children and goats as they try to keep ahead of the violence.
They trudged past hundreds of soldiers guarding the road toward Goma. Among them, AP reporters saw Portuguese- speaking black soldiers wearing green berets with pins in the shape of a map of Angola. Doss said Saturday he did not have direct independent confirmation that Angolan soldiers were in Congo.
The presence of Angolans in the volatile region could be seen as a provocation by neighboring Rwanda, raising tensions and fears that Congo’s conflicts could again spill over its borders. Congo asked Angola for support Oct. 29.
