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UN Launches Inquiry Into Congo Atrocities

by Reuters

   GENEVA --

   The United Nations Human Rights Council launched an international
   investigation on Friday into killings and other atrocities in the Kasai
   region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

   The 47-member Geneva forum adopted by consensus a resolution brought by
   African countries which also called on the Kinshasa government to
   cooperate with the team of international experts.

   U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has called repeatedly for the
   inquiry and said on Tuesday that a militia linked to government has
   committed a string of ethnically-motivated attacks in recent months,
   including cutting off toddlers' limbs and stabbing pregnant women.

   Congo's government has been fighting insurgents in Kasai since last
   August, triggering fears of a wider conflict in the large central
   African country, which is a tinderbox of ethnic rivalry and competing
   claims over mineral resources.