49 dead in new flare-up of ethnic unrest in DR Congo's Ituri

BUNIA, DR CONGO: At least 49 people were killed in a fresh outbreak of ethnic violence overnight in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled Ituri province, a senior charity official said on Friday.

The latests killings were part of a cycle of unrest between the Hema and Lendu communities in the northeastern province, the government told AFP.

"We have counted 49 bodies and are still searching for other bodies," said Alfred Ndrabu Buju from international Catholic charity Caritas.

"A child was admitted this morning in Drodro general hospital, with an arrow in his head," Buju added.

The Interior Minister Henri Mova earlier put the death toll at 33.

"The provincial governor is on his way to the site of the killings," Mova said.

The violence happened in the village of Maze, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Bunia, Ituri's provincial capital.

Witnesses told AFP the attackers were members of the Lendu community.

"The attackers went into the village and committed a real massacre," local activist Banza Charite said.

The violence in Ituri has left over 100 people dead since mid-December, and forced 200,000 people to flee their homes.

More than 28,000 of the displaced have fled across the border to Uganda in recent weeks, according to UN figures, most of them women and children, bringing with them tales of horrific violence.

The Hema cattle herders and Lendu farmers of Congo's Ituri region are antagonistic neighbours and outbreaks of low-level violence between them are common.

But in the late 1990s and early 2000s their fight became a broader, more brutal battle stoked by Rwanda and Uganda, which were eager to seize gold, diamond, timber and influence as part of a wider continental war that played out inside Congo's borders.