Congolese Militia Kill at Least 20 People in North Kivu, UN Says

(Bloomberg) -- A Congolese militia attacked a camp sheltering displaced people in the nation’s North Kivu region and killed more than 20 people, the United Nations said.

A group of 50 militants from the Mai-Mai Mazembe of the Nande ethnic group struck early Sunday at the camp for people of Hutu origin in Luhanga, the UN mission known as Monusco said in a statement.

At least 37 people were killed and 26 others injured in the attack, according to Omar Kavota, director of the Center for Studies of Peace and Defense of Human Rights. The victims were either shot or hacked to death by machetes, he said by phone.

Tensions between the Nande and Hutu have been going on for years over land and mineral riches. The Nande accuse the Hutu of conspiring with the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, to kill its people.

The FDLR has been operating in eastern Congo since 1995. Some of its leaders are linked to the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda in which almost one million people were killed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ignatius Ssuuna in Johannesburg at issuuna@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Helen Nyambura-Mwaura at hnyamburamwa@bloomberg.net.