Ituri, Congo
More than 1,000 civilians were slaughtered last week in a sudden resurgence of the bloody Congolese conflict known as Africa’s World War. The four-and-a-half-year war has drawn in troops and paramilitaries from six countries, and killed more than 3 million people. In the latest violence, the victims were all members of the Hema tribe, and the machete-armed killers were thought to be ethnic Lendus—women and children among them. U.N. observers fear the massacre could spark renewed military intervention in the country by Uganda, which has supported the Hemas in the past, or by Rwanda, which has supported the Lendus. The U.N. has 4,500 peacekeepers in Congo, but they have been unable to prevent continuing atrocities.
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