- Marauding rebels are massacring and eating pygmies in
the dense forests of north-east Congo, according to UN officials who are
investigating allegations of cannibalism in Ituri province, where fighting
between several rebel groups has displaced about 150,000 people in the
past month.
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- Many of the displaced tell of rebel fighters capturing
and butchering pygmies, Manoddje Mounoubai, spokesman for the UN ceasefire
monitoring mission in Congo, said yesterday.
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- The UN had sent six officials to investigate the accusation
as well as other human rights abuses, he said.
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- Other UN officials in the capital, Kinshasa, and the
eastern city of Goma said that widespread cannibalism had already been
established.
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- "Ituri is completely out of control and cannibalism
is just the latest atrocity taking place," said one, who asked not
to be named until the investigators deliver their report. "Perhaps
this will finally alert the world to what's going on."
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- Ituri's forest-dwelling pygmy tribes have been caught
be tween opposing groups supporting the government and Ugandan-backed rebel
groups in the last battles of Congo's four-year civil war.
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- The two Ugandan-backed movements routinely enslave pygmies
to forage for forest food and prospect for minerals, a UN official said.
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- Hunters returning empty-handed were killed and eaten.
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- Sudi Alimasi, an official of the pro-government group
Rally for Congolese Democracy-ML, said it had begun receiving reports of
cannibalism from people displaced by fighting more than a week ago.
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- "We hear reports of [enemy] commanders feeding on
sexual organs of pygmies, apparently believing this would give them strength,"
he said.
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- "We also have reports of pygmies being forced to
feed on the cooked remains of their colleagues."
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- Cannibalism has re-emerged throughout eastern Congo as
the last vestiges of colonial influence have been eroded during the war.
Much of the vast forested area is controlled by the Mayi-Mayi, a loose
grouping of tribal militias united by their magical beliefs and taste for
human flesh.
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- On a recent assignment in eastern Congo the Guardian
correspondent saw many Mayi-Mayi fighters wearing parts of the bodies of
their Rwandan enemies, in the belief that this would make them invincible.
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- "We are hearing reports of untold horrors in Ituri,"
said Wyger Wentholt, of MÈdecins sans FrontiËres.
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,871044,00.html
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