Two Hutu women were dragged out of a minibus, lynched and their bodies set on fire by a crowd in eastern Congo, the local mayor said yesterday, as inter-ethnic tensions in the region surge in the wake of massacres that have killed hundreds of civilians.
The crowd in the town of Butembo, which is dominated by members of the Nande ethnic group, said the two ethnic Hutu women who were travelling by minibus in North Kivu province were militants, mayor Sikuli Uvasaka Makala told local radio.
Dozens have died in tit-for-tat killings by ethnic militia this year.
Ethnic rivalries, invasions by Rwanda and Uganda and competition for land and minerals among eastern Congo’s dozens of rebel groups have stoked conflict over the last two decades.
“I condemn the death of these two women,” Uvasaka said. “I insist: stop carrying out popular justice.
Do you want to put the Nande community at risk?”
Migration by Hutu farmers from North Kivu through predominantly Nande areas towards Ituri province in search of more fertile land has fuelled tensions, Otto Bahizi, a Hutu tribal leader from nearby Rutshuru territory, told Reuters.
The government blames the massacres over the last two years that have killed more than 700 civilians on Ugandan Islamist rebels but independent analysts say other armed groups are involved and ethnic rivalries likely play a role.
About 50 civilians were hacked to death this month outside Beni, some 50km north of Butembo.
Hundreds of young demonstrators again took to the streets of Butembo yesterday to protest against the government’s failure to stop the killings.
The army fired into the air and arrested about 15 people, a Reuters witness said.
The United Nations condemned yesterday the arrests of 32 people in DR Congo after a nationwide opposition-led strike call gripped parts of the country, calling some of them “arbitrary”.
The arrests happened Tuesday in the capital Kinshasa and in Mbuji-Mayi in the centre of the country, said Jose Maria Aranaz, who heads the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO).
Eleven of those arrested by police and the national intelligence agency (ANR) remain in custody in Mbuji-Mayi, while the rest were subsequently released, he added.
Some of those arrested were accused of “acting against a peaceful protest” while others were “arbitrary arrests”, said Aranaz.
Business slowed in Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Tuesday after the opposition called for a national strike to demand president Joseph Kabila end his 15-year rule when his mandate runs out in December.
The call for a nationwide shutdown was issued by new opposition coalition, “Rassemblement” (“Gathering”), headed by veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, to protest against a delay in this year’s scheduled presidential election.
The country’s highest court earlier this year ruled that Kabila could stay in office beyond December if no election were held.