The UN raised to 171 the number of civilians killed in a massacre committed in late November in two towns in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, it said in a report on Tuesday.
The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office documented cases “of summary executions of at least 171 people in the towns of Bambo and Kishishe, between November 21 and 30, 2022,” in the province of North Kivu.
The massacre was “committed by the M23” in the form of “retaliation against civilians for their alleged collaboration with the national defense and security forces and rival armed groups,” it added.
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A movement made up mostly of members of the Tutsi ethnic group, the M23 has occupied significant tracts of territory to the north of the provincial capital, Goma, in recent months, and continues its progression in the northwest of this city.
The DRC accuses Rwanda of supporting this movement, something that UN experts and Western countries also maintain, although Kigali denies it.
A preliminary UN investigation established in December that the massacre in those two towns caused 131 deaths, while the Kinshasa authorities raised the toll to around 300 deaths.