Orders to kill wounded, soldiers claim

Soldiers among the thousands of DRC troops who retreated into Zambia over the past two weeks are saying they were ordered to kill their wounded comrades. “We had orders from commanders to shoot dead any wounded. We were told it was far too expensive to fly them to hospitals in Kalemie or Lubumbashi,” Reuters quoted Ndongala Kasiswa - a former DRC army captain among nearly 100 ex-combatants who laid down their arms and applied for refugee status - as saying on Monday. “We had orders to end their lives. I have killed and know many who have died,” Kasiswa said. Other soldiers in the group were quoted by the agency as saying “they had been told to kill the wounded like ‘flies’”. The agency also quoted the refugee soldiers as complaining that they had received no pay since Kabila took power 29 months ago. “They said they felt cheated because they had defended a man who had shown little or no interest in their personal lives,” according to the report.