The priest of Notre-Dame cathedral in Kisangani, Father Marcien Babikanga, has condemned “deliberate and planned massacres” in Province Orientale last month. In a letter to the visiting Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, on Saturday, he claimed the killings had taken place on the night of 20-21 June, in an area around the villages of Kabalibali and Masimango, some 60 km from Ubundu along the Congo river. According to IRIN sources on the ground, he said the zone was controlled by rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) who “massacred and burnt entire villages on the pretext of fighting the Mayi-Mayi [militia]”. He called for an international commission of enquiry to investigate these facts, and for an international tribunal for Congo “because cases of this kind of gratuitous killing are countless”.
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