More than 50 mass graves were discovered by a joint UN and government fact-finding mission after ethnic violence in mid-December in a region of western Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN announced.
The director of the Joint UN Office for Human Rights in the DRC (UNJHRO), said on Friday that there are more than 50 mass graves in Yumbi in the western province of Mai-Ndombe, Abdoul Aziz Thioye,
According to Thioye, this suggests that the number (of deaths) is quite high because a common grave (depending on) size can contain five, ten bodies” or even “one hundred bodies or four times more.
General Fall Sikabwe, army chief in the western region of the DRC confirmed that Investigations are ongoing.
The violence, linked to disagreements over ancestral lands between members of the Nunu and Téndé communities, broke out after the burial of a Nunu traditional chief on land claimed by the Tende, despite the ban imposed by local authorities.
Since 16 December 2018, more than 16,000 people have found refuge in the Republic of Congo by crossing the Congo River, the UN said in a report dated 17 January.
Due to the violence, general elections were not held in Yumbi on 30 December. Legislative and provincial elections will be held in March, according to Congo’s Electoral Commission.