WORLD> Africa
Congo rebels accused of war crimes, advance further
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-07 09:45

KIWANJA, Congo -- Congolese Tutsi rebels went from door to door killing men in an eastern town overnight, residents said on Thursday, but rebel commanders said they had targeted only pro-government militia fighters.

Jane Kanyere is consoled by a neighbour after her son, Moise Kasereka , a teacher, was killed in fighting in the town of Kiwanja, 70 Kilometers (50 miles) north Goma in eastern Congo, November 6, 2008. UN peacekeepers found the bodies of a dozen civilians who had been shot on Thursday in an eastern Congo village occupied by Tutsi rebels who have seized fresh territory in North Kivu province, witnesses and a UN spokesman said. [Agencies]

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US-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the rebels of war crimes in Kiwanja, where journalists accompanying UN peacekeepers found the bodies of a dozen shot civilians a day after rebels drove pro-government militiamen from the town.

The UN peacekeeping force in Congo (MONUC) said rebels seized fresh territory on Thursday, violating a self-declared ceasefire in Congo's violent North Kivu province where Tutsi rebel General Laurent Nkunda launched an offensive 11 days ago.

The UN has its largest peacekeeping force, 17,000 strong, in Congo. But commanders say they cannot be everywhere in a vast, violent country the size of Western Europe which despite huge mineral wealth has only 600 km (375 miles) of paved roads.

A stench of death hung over Kiwanja when journalists and UN troops entered. Most of its 30,000 inhabitants fled in panic during fighting on Tuesday and Wednesday.

At least a dozen bodies of adult males, five in one house alone, were visible among the mud-walled and tin-roofed homes, a few of them burned, apparently hit by rockets or grenades.

"They knocked on the doors, when the people opened, they killed them with their guns," said Simo Bramporiki, aged around 60, who said his wife and child were killed during the night.

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor warned this week the court was closely watching the latest flare-up in regional confliction.

A distraught woman, crying hysterically, asked journalists to "come and see the five dead bodies in my house". One was that of her husband. Two more bodies lay outside. Rebel fighters boasted to reporters that they had killed many Mai-Mai militia.

Journalists asked the UN peacekeepers, who have a base nearby, why they had not intervened. They did not reply.

"Screams In The Night"

"The killing of civilians, the destruction of camps, the forced return of displaced people, and the forced evacuation of towns are all war crimes," HRW researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg said. "People in Kiwanja heard screams throughout the night."

There was nothing, neither uniforms nor weapons, to indicate the dead had been fighters. Some wore work overalls.

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