Over 7,000 killed in eastern DR Congo since January: PM

by Robin MILLARD

Violence raging in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has killed "more than 7,000 compatriots", many of them civilians, since last month, the Congolese premier said Monday.

The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized large swathes of the mineral-rich eastern DRC -- including the main cities of Goma and Bukavu -- in the face of limited resistance from Congolese forces.

"The security situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels," Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, stressing that since January, "the deaths of more than 7,000 compatriots" had been registered.

They include "more than 2,500 bodies buried without being identified", she said, adding that another 1,500 bodies were still in the morgue.

Asked at a press briefing on the sidelines of the council whether the dead were civilians or soldiers, she said that "for the moment... we have not yet been able to identify all of these people".

But, she stressed, "there is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead".

The M23 movement, supported by some 4,000 Rwandan soldiers, according to UN experts, now controls large tracts of troubled eastern DRC. Its rapid advance has sent tens of thousands fleeing.

Fighters took control of the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu just over a week ago, after first capturing Goma, the capital of North Kivu and the main city in the country's east, last month.

Tuluka said that more than 3,000 people had been killed in Goma alone.

- Regional conflict fears -

UN chief Antonio Guterres told the Human Rights Council that the situation in the DRC was "a deadly whirlwind of violence and horrifying human rights abuses".

"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected," he said.

"As more cities fall, the risk of a regional war rises. It's time to silence the guns."

Tuluka agreed, warning the situation could degenerate and affect all the DRC's nine neighbours -- and not only because of the influx of refugees.

She said the proliferation of armed groups around the M23 was "becoming dangerous", and if armed groups in surrounding countries linked up, the entire region could be engulfed.

Due to meet Guterres on Monday, the prime minister said she wanted to hear how the UN sees the conflict being resolved -- and how the UN resolutions can actually be implemented on the ground.

Asked by reporters if she would like the United States to intervene, she replied: "That would not be a bad thing."

- Minerals and mobiles -

The prime minister said Rwanda wanted to occupy Congolese territory where there were critically important mines.

"The question we need to ask now is exactly who Rwanda is reselling these minerals to, that come from this illegal exploitation of resources," she told journalists.

In December, the DRC filed a criminal case against European subsidiaries of tech giant Apple, accusing them of illegally using "blood minerals" in its supply chain.

It alleges that Apple has bought contraband supplies from the country's conflict-racked east.

"They are using minerals which come from the DRC," said Tuluka, "and we want to know how this company is getting its supplies of minerals which are allowing all of us to use our telephones and computers".

© Agence France-Presse