At least 100 killed in new massacre in east DR Congo

About 100 people were slaughtered last week in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the latest massacre to shake the restive region, lawmakers told AFP on Nov. 24.
      
The carnage took place on Thursday near Beni in the North Kivu province, where mainly Muslim Ugandan rebels have been blamed for killing more than 200 civilians in gruesome machete attacks since October.
      
"I have a figure of 95 bodies buried in a common grave," as well as "nine others that were shown to authorities in a morgue," opposition member of parliament Juma Balikwisha told AFP.
      
"We still don't have a definitive toll. It lies between 70 and 100 people killed," said Albert Baliesima, an MP for the parliamentary majority backing President Joseph Kabila.
      
The Civil Society of North Kivu, an NGO based in Beni, blamed rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces and National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU) for the latest in a wave of massacres that began early in October.
      
However, regional officials who spoke to AFP said they did not know who carried out the killings in a region where the Congolese army (FARDC) and a UN special intervention force have been battling the ADF-NALU since January.
      
"We were told that the (FARDC) didn't want people to go further into the bush," where more bodies could yet be discovered, Baliesima added.
      
An administrative source in Beni said that the killings took place in four villages close together between the market town and the town of Mbau, 20 kilometres (12 miles) further north.
      
Reached by telephone, a local resident told AFP that 95 bodies picked up in the bush had been buried in the village of Tepiomba.
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