The military vowed Wednesday to hunt down militiamen who killed 18 people and kidnapped scores of others in eastern Congo, while the United Nations said it would investigate the massacre. Government troops are preparing an offensive against militia who carried out the attack, killing their victims with machetes and axes and kidnapping 50 others, said Lt. Kasanda Wa Kasanda, military spokesman for South Kivu province. Kasanda, citing survivors' accounts, said the militiamen called themselves Rastas and were accompanied by Rwandan Hutu rebels from the group Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, known by its French abbreviation FDLR. "We've decided to track the Rastas and FDLR and save our population," said Kasanda, speaking by telephone from a military base in Walungu, near Ninja.| "Never fear! The Congolese army is here!... Hey! Where'd everybody go?" |
"They'll be entering heavy forests where the security is not good," said Salmeron, speaking by telephone from Bukavu, the provincial capital located 50 miles east of Ninja. "There will be lots and lots of preparation for this."