DRC: UN chief “alarmed” by surge in violence, as militia executes 17 hostages

The escalating violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has claimed more than 700 lives at the hands of militia fighters since December last year, the United Nations said Monday (27 March).
This comes as the CODECO insurgents, a notorious militia operating in the region, a day earlier executed at least 17 people it had previously taken hostage, local sources said. Rebel militias have plagued the eastern DRC for decades, many of them a legacy of regional wars that flared during the 1990s and early 2000s. CODECO, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, is one of myriad armed groups operating in the restive, mineral-rich region. “The security situation deteriorated further in the three eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo with a steep surge in violence,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a quarterly report.
Guterres also expressed concern over human rights violations in the mineral-rich but war-scarred former Zaire, saying at least 628 people were killed in extrajudicial or summary killings by armed groups — mainly the M23, CODECO and the Allied Democratic Forces — not just in the three provinces of the east but around the whole country. The DRC and several Western governments have repeatedly claimed the M23 rebels are backed by Rwanda eyeing the natural resources across the border, a charge denied by Kigali. The UN chief also said he was “alarmed” by the rise in hate speech exacerbated by M23 violence and tension between the DRC and Rwanda.