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Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo announced Thursday that it has arrested 25 people as part of an investigation into a mbadacre in a remote area in the northwest of the country last December, killing hundreds.
"So far, we have heard 105 victims, 83 witnesses appeared before military justice investigators and 25 alleged perpetrators were remanded in custody," said the Minister of Human Rights, Marie-Ange Mushobekwa, presenting the report of an investigating commission.
She did not identify the suspects.
According to the UN, 535 people, including women and children, were mbadacred between 16 and 17 December in three villages in Yumbi, a territory located about 300 km north of Kinshasa.
Several days pbaded before details of the mbadacre appeared and more time had elapsed before the government acknowledged that local authorities had played a role in the violence.
According to preliminary UN investigations in January, bloodletting seemed to be rooting in a longstanding inter-communal rivalry.
The victims were mostly members of the Banunu community, targeted by rival Batende, who had opposed the burial site of a Banunu chief.
Mushobekwa reported that "rights violations have caused 461 deaths," including the Yumbi Territory administrator and three soldiers. 133 others were wounded by bullets, stab wounds or burns, she said.
"There were administrative officials who fanned the flames and who have already been heard by the military justice," she said.
Provincial authorities are also to blame for failing to take steps to prevent violence, she said.
"They sinned through omission, negligence," she said.
After the bloodshed, the government replaced several territorial officials, including police and intelligence chiefs, army personnel and administrative staff.
In 2009, ethnic clashes in the region forced 130,000 people to flee to the Republic of Congo, which currently hosts 60,000 refugees, mainly from the DRC, the Central African Republic and Rwanda.
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