UN rapporteur condemns Bunia violence

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in DRC, Roberto Garreton, has condemned the recent clashes between the Hema and Lendu in Bunia. In a press statement, he said that on 19 January, Lendu and Ngiti militiamen attacked Ugandan military positions near Bunia airport. He then said the Ugandan army "incited Hema militiamen to carry out reprisals and pursue the Lendu and Ngiti militias". "Armed with arrows, spears and machetes, the Hema entered areas inhabited by Lendu and arbitrarily executed over 150 of them," Garreton stated in his report. He accused Uganda of "exacerbating the tension between the two ethnic groups".

Meanwhile, the RCD-ML said Ugandan soldiers "violently" broke into the Bunia home of its leader, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba on Sunday after disarming his guards. In a statement, the RCD-ML said the soldiers were looking for documents, and made away with a satellite phone and a video recorder. The statement further said that Jacques Depelchin, a close collaborator of Wamba, was "kidnapped at gunpoint" after being kept under house arrest for three weeks. He was reportedly taken to the headquarters of Ugandan army commander, Colonel Edison Muzoora, and held incommunicado for nearly seven hours, before being "deported" to Kampala where is under "city arrest". The statement said no reasons were given for his deportation and he is now on hunger strike.