Allegations of cannibalism once again circulated in troubled northeastern Congo, with terrified witnesses describing the mutilation and eating of the dead during more than a week of tribal fighting that killed scores and forced thousands to flee.
Church leaders and residents in Bunia, the capital of the Ituri district, said Monday that Lendu tribal fighters killed civilians and combatants, cutting open their chests and ripping out hearts, livers and lungs, which they ate while they were still warm.
Superstitious beliefs, inexplicable hatred and a desire to settle old scores were the driving forces behind the acts of cannibalism, said Father Joseph Deneckere, a Belgian priest who has lived in Congo since 1970.
PHOTO:AFP
``Some of the victims had their sexual organs missing after the tribal fighters cut them off to use in their charms,'' Deneckere said.
Fighting in Bunia subsided Friday but the town remained tense and frightened residents said they were terrified at the thought of it flaring up again.
``The sight of a corpse with a missing liver and heart is horrific, especially when you know that those parts were eaten by fellow human beings and that the same could happen to you,'' said Acquitte Kisembo, a 28-year-old medical student.
He said he saw several bodies with missing parts.
The UN is taking the allegations seriously and plans to investigate the reports of cannibalism, said Amos Namanga Ngongi, head of the UN mission in Congo.
The reports ``cannot be so persistent and false,'' he told reporters in Bunia. ``There cannot be so much talk of such things if it is false.''
Reports of cannibalism are not new to Ituri.
On Jan. 15, UN investigators confirmed that rebels of the Congolese Liberation Movement and the allied Congolese Rally for Democracy-National had carried out cannibalism, rape, torture and killing in the province late last year.
Similar reports emerged after an April 3 massacre of up to 1,000 people in Drodro, 32km northeast of Bunia, and 14 surrounding villages, UN officials said.
The fighting in Bunia between the rival Hema and Lendu tribal factions began nearly two weeks ago after Uganda withdrew its more than 6,000 troops from the town and the surrounding area.
A cease-fire was signed Friday and the United Nations is trying to assemble an international force to augment more than 750 UN soldiers from Uruguay already there.
There is still no accurate tally of the dead, but at least 100 people are thought to have been killed and thousands forced to flee their homes in Bunia after more than a week of fighting between Hema and Lendu gunmen who were battling for control of the town.
Among the dead are two UN military observers.
The bodies of the observers -- one Jordanian, the other Nigerian -- were discovered in Mongbwalu, a gold mining center 70km northwest of Bunia on Sunday where they had been ``savagely killed,'' said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the UN mission in Congo.
The last contact with the two UN officers, both of whom were unarmed, came last Tuesday, when they described to their colleagues a tense situation in Mongbwalu, with rival Hema and Lendu fighters preparing to battle for control of the town, UN officials have said.
After losing contact with the observers, the UN tried three times to send search and rescue teams into Mongbwalu but failed when Hema and Lendu factions said they could not guarantee the safety of UN personnel.
By Sunday, however, a team was able to enter the town by helicopter and exhumed the remains of the observers, which were taken to Bunia. The UN plans to investigate the killings, Toure said.
There are about 700 unarmed UN military observers in Congo, 32 of whom were in Ituri, a resource-rich province that has been plagued by massacres and killings as rival tribal and rebel factions have fought for control of the area during the more than 4 1/2-year civil war in Congo.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not