July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Friday, July 13, 2001 - Web posted at 10:42:29 GMT

DRC witch-hunt toll rises to 843

KAMPALA - The death toll from lynchings of suspected sorcerers in north-eastern Congo has doubled to more than 800 as reports of more mob killings filtered through from remote areas, a Ugandan army officer said on Wednesday.

"The death toll has reached 843," military intelligence Captain Alfred Opio said from the Ugandan town of Arua, which is just across the border from the northeastern Congolese border town of Aru."

"I was in Aru on Monday, and those are the figures I got from the governor."

Opio reported on July 4 that the deaths from the killings, carried out in June, stood then at 394.

Opio said nearly 150 suspected killers had been arrested in a joint operation by local police and the Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces, which maintains a strong presence in this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"They are being held in a prison in Aru," Opio said.

In the village of Zaki, northwest of Aru, where 175 people were reported killed, dozens of bodies had been tossed into pit latrines, Opio said.

According to reports in the Ugandan state-owned New Vision newspaper, the killings in and around Aru began in June after a boy brought an exercise book to school which contained a list of people who had died in his village.

- Nampa-Reuters

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