{"id":33401,"date":"2017-03-23T12:48:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T12:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/un-finds-10-mass-graves-in-crisis-hit-dr-congo\/"},"modified":"2017-03-23T12:54:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T12:54:35","slug":"un-finds-10-mass-graves-in-crisis-hit-dr-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/un-finds-10-mass-graves-in-crisis-hit-dr-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"UN finds 10 mass graves in crisis-hit DR Congo region"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The United Nations said Wednesday investigators found 10 mass graves in the violence-wracked Kasai region in the Democratic Republic of Congo&#8217;s centre.}<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have communicated to the (Congolese) government the presence of seven mass graves in the town of Demba &#8230; and three mass graves in Tshimbulu,&#8221; UN human rights officer Barbara Matasconi told reporters in capital Kinshasa.<\/p>\n<p>The remote region has been plagued by violence since mid-August when government forces killed a tribal chief and militia leader, Kamwina Nsapu, who had rebelled against the central government of President Joseph Kabila.<\/p>\n<p>Clashes between government forces and Nsapu supporters began in central Kasai, but the violence has since spilled over to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.<\/p>\n<p>Matasconi said her office has received &#8220;very serious&#8221; allegations of other mass graves but they have not been &#8220;confirmed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Congolese government previously admitted to the existence of three mass graves in the region, but provided no details on the identities of those killed or how they died.<\/p>\n<p>Two foreign UN experts, an American and a Swedish-Chilean, along with their four Congolese staff were kidnapped on March 11 in the region. A Uruguayan peacekeeper was also shot and injured the week before that.<\/p>\n<p>The United Nations has nearly 19,000 troops deployed in the DR Congo, its largest and costliest peacekeeping mission, with about 100 of those troops in the Kasai region.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-18907 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/drc.jpg\" alt=\"Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) soldiers sitting at the back of a pick-up truck in Rutshuru on November 4, 2013. 10 mass graves were found the violence-wracked Kasai region. \" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The United Nations said Wednesday investigators found 10 mass graves in the violence-wracked Kasai region in the Democratic Republic of Congo&#8217;s centre.} &#8220;We have communicated to the (Congolese) government the presence of seven mass graves in the town of Demba &#8230; and three mass graves in Tshimbulu,&#8221; UN human rights officer Barbara Matasconi told reporters [&hellip;]<\/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":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33401","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=33401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33401"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33401"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}