{Kinshasa-The prosecution of over 600 police and soldiers for human rights violations has failed to curb widespread impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo.}<\/p>\n
The violations were committed from January 2014 to date, a period marked by protests against President Joseph Kabila clinging to power beyond constitutional limits.<\/p>\n
United Nations investigations indicate violations peaked last month when police, armed forces and the Republican Guard used excessive and lethal force during demonstrations in Kinshasa.<\/p>\n
At least 53 people were killed over two days while some 143 protesters were injured and about 300 unlawfully arrested.<\/p>\n
The figures might be higher as UN teams were denied access to records of some morgues, hospitals and detention facilities.<\/p>\n
Of the 53 people documented killed, including seven women and two children, at least 48 were killed by state agents, including police, soldiers and armed government forces.<\/p>\n
Perpetrators were not identified in the killing of four police officers and one woman.<\/p>\n
Most victims, including a five-year-old girl, were shot in the head, chest and back.<\/p>\n
Others died after being burned, stabbed, beaten or attacked with machetes.<\/p>\n
The DRC Special Representative of the UN, Maman Sidikou, urged authorities to investigate.<\/p>\n
“Strong political will is needed to ensure justice and reparation to all victims of serious violations.”<\/p>\n
Polls were due in November but have been rescheduled to April 2018 with Kabila retained as president in a transitional government including some opposition parties. – CAJ News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Kinshasa-The prosecution of over 600 police and soldiers for human rights violations has failed to curb widespread impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo.} The violations were committed from January 2014 to date, a period marked by protests against President Joseph Kabila clinging to power beyond constitutional limits. United Nations investigations indicate violations peaked last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[2489],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-all-africa"],"bylines":[{"id":2489,"name":"ALL AFRICA","slug":"all-africa","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2489,"name":"ALL AFRICA","slug":"all-africa","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29694"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29694"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}