15,000 Kitenge residents flee May-Mayi militia

At least 15,000 people have fled the village of Kitenge in the southern province of Katanga, where Mayi-Mayi militiamen have killed 100 people since 1 January, a local human rights official told IRIN. "Kitenge residents live in fear and in trauma. They can no longer go about their normal business, because the Mayi-Mayi are extorting, looting, raping, burning homes, cutting off fingers and the private parts and pubic hairs of their victims," Bin Masudi, the coordinator of the Katanga-based Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, said. Survivors have fled to localities surrounding Kitenge and to the provincial capital, Lubumbashi, 700 km to the south. Masudi said the internally displaced people were now living with relatives and friends. He said there were no humanitarian aid structures available, because militiamen had looted all the health and humanitarian facilities. Medecins Sans Frontieres France withdrew from the village after it was thoroughly looted in November 2003. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) military authorities have confirmed the killings, attributing them to a splinter faction of the Mayi-Mayi. "For us, this is a group of armed bandits who continue to kill, loot and rape, but we cannot understand why the Mayi-Mayi would continue to act this way when their supreme commander has ordered them to regroup in readiness for integration into the new unified national army," Gen Dieugentil Mpia Nzambe said. DRC military officers sent to persuade the Mayi-Mayi to regroup had themselves been taken hostage and local administrators had to pay 1.2 million DRC francs (US $3,200) for their release, Mpia Nzambe said. "These Mayi-Mayi on a Sunday threw a grenade into a church congregation celebrating mass, and killed 25 people. Then, they cut off their victims' sexual organs and used them as talismans," he said. He said thousands of other Mayi-Mayi from northern Katanga had already assembled, awaiting integration into the new army. The DRC's belligerents have been regrouping since June 2003 in a transitional government of national unity and other state institutions in preparation for general elections in 2005. Belgian instructors are already training the first integrated 2,500-member army brigade of former enemies. Human rights activists have complained that there has still been no inquiry into the repeated killings since November 2003. But the UN Mission in the DRC, know as MONUC, sent investigators to the site in mid-February. "We have received some information on the massacre, but we are waiting for the results of the investigation before making this public," Hamadoun Toure, the MONUC spokesman, said.