Congolese army commanders orchestrated a wave of massacres that killed hundreds of people between 2014-2016 as they vied for influence with anti-government insurgents in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a new report said on Monday.
The report by the Congo Research Group (CRG) at New York University is the most comprehensive to date on the killings of more than 800 people.
It is based on 249 interviews with perpetrators, eyewitnesses and victims as well as internal U.N. reports and arrest records that document participation in the killings.
CRG cited multiple witnesses saying that army commanders, including the former top general in the zone, supported and in some cases organized the killings. During some massacres, sources told CRG, soldiers secured the perimeter so that victims could not escape.
According to the report, the first massacres were orchestrated in 2013 by former leaders of the Popular Congolese Army (APC), the armed wing of a rebellion from Congo’s 1998-2003 war.
