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More than 50 mbad graves have been identified in the western Democratic Republic of Congo after a string of killings in the region, said a human rights group.
"There are more than 50 mbad graves, as well as mbad and individual graves, which we identified" in Yumbi, in the western part of Mai-Ndombe province, said Abdoul Aziz Thioye, director of the Joint Bureau United Nations human rights in the DRC, following a joint investigation mission with local authorities.
"This suggests that the number (of deaths) is quite high because a common pit depending on its size can hold five, ten bodies" or even "one hundred bodies or four times more," said Thioye on Friday.
General Fall Sikabwe, head of the army in western DRC, told AFP that an investigation had been opened.
"They killed soldiers and policemen by taking their weapons to kill them," he said without giving more details about these murders.
Earlier this month, the UN announced that at least 890 people had been killed during three days of intercommunal clashes in the region.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said in a statement of 16 January that the UN office had been informed by "credible sources" that people had been killed between 16 and 18 December in four villages in Yumbi.
The violence seems to be rooted in a long rivalry between the Banunu and Batende ethnic groups, which broke out when members of the Banunu tribe buried a traditional chief in the Batende territory on the night of 13 December.
About 465 houses and buildings were then burned or looted, including two primary schools, a health center, a market and the office of the National Electoral Commission, the UN human rights office announced.
The UN refugee agency said earlier this month that 16,000 people had fled their villages to the neighboring Republic of Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville.
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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