23 November 2017•Update: 23 November 2017
By Godfrey Olukya
ARU, Democratic Republic of Congo
The UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) in DRC said in a report on Thursday that it documented 704 cases of human rights violations in October.
According to the report, this figure represents a 60 percent increase in human rights violations in the country in two months.
“The main perpetrators of these violations are state agents including elements of the DRC armed forces (FARDC) and elements of the police.
“They account for 63 percent of all reported human rights violations, including the extrajudicial execution of 56 people.”
It added that armed groups were responsible for 162 human rights abuses, with 135 summary executions in October.
The report also stressed that members of civil society organizations were the main targets of these human rights violations across virtually all provinces of the DRC.
Ever since President Joseph Kabila signaled he would refuse to leave power when his term of office expires in December 2017, chaos ensued in most parts of the country.
In the Kasai region, according to the Catholic Church, 3,000 people have been killed and over 1.3 million displaced due to clashes between anti-Kabila militiamen and government forces.
