The Congo-A Fearful Toll

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

A Fearful Toll

Civil society groups said ethnic violence has claimed more than 240 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo since last week and convinced some 300,000 others to flee their homes.

The rising tide of strife in the volatile eastern province of Ituri has sparked frightening memories of clashes between the Hema and Lendu ethnicities that resulted in an estimated 50,000 deaths between 1999 and 2007, Reuters reported.

A witness told the news agency that machete-wielding attackers believed to belong to the rival Lendu farming community hacked her husband and other herders to death in the Hema village of Kpatsi, then set fire to their houses.

Fighting between the two communities had led to widespread displacement in late 2017 and early 2018, but the situation had been calm until recently, the UN Refugee Agency said. Following the recent killings, people are fleeing their homes on a massive scale in three of Ituri’s five administrative territories. That’s exacerbating an already dire situation, as the DRC has an estimated 4.5 million internally displaced people.