'Killings followed' DR Congo poll

20 March 2012 Last updated at 16:57 GMT  The aftermath of the election was characterised by violence Security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo carried out killings and arbitrary arrests after elections last year, according to a UN report.

The UN Joint Human Rights Office documented the killing of 33 civilians in Kinshasa by members of the army, police and the elite Republican Guard.

The country's justice minister has rejected the report's findings.

International observers say last November's disputed elections, won by President Joseph Kabila, were flawed.

The report focuses on the period between 26 November and 26 December 2011 in Kinshasa - seen as an opposition stronghold.

It says that during this month, at least 33 people were killed - including 22 by gunshot - and at least 83 others were injured, including 61 who were shot.

At least 16 people remain unaccounted for, it said.

'Dumped in river'

It said it had documented the arrest of at least 265 civilians, most of whom had been detained illegally or arbitrarily.

Many of these, the report alleges, were detained due to their affiliation with the UDPS opposition party or because they came from the home province of its leader, Etienne Tshisekedi.

It blames the bulk of these acts of violence on the Congolese Republican Guard and officers of the National Congolese Police and its specialised units.

Witnesses are quoted as saying some of the bodies were dumped in the Congo river, while others were buried in mass graves.

The report calls on the Congolese authorities to conduct independent investigations into all the cases of human rights violations committed in the capital to bring those guilty to justice.

It also recommends that illegal detention facilities in the capital should be immediately shut down.

The November elections were the first Congolese-organised polls since the end of a devastating war in 2003, which left some four million people dead.

President Kabila has admitted that there were mistakes in the electoral process, but said no poll was 100% perfect and rejected concerns that the results, criticised by Western observers, lacked credibility.

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DR Congo bounty for rebel leader

9 September 2011 Last updated at 13:05 GMT Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo have offered a reward of $100,000 (£63,000) for information leading to the capture of a top militia leader who broke out of jail.

More than 960 inmates were freed on Wednesday when armed men attacked the prison in Lubumbashi, Katanga province.

Gedeon Kyungu Mutanga, a former commander of the Mai Mai militia movement, remains on the loose.

Smaller bounties have been posted for other fugitive inmates.

Two guards were killed when the masked gunmen drove into Kassapa prison in a minibus - apparently unnoticed - and launched their assault.

Of the 967 prisoners who escaped, about 230 have been recaptured, among them Mutanga's wife, provincial interior minister Dikanga Kazadi told Agence France-Presse news agency.

Mutanga was sentenced to death in 2009 for his role in the long-running conflict in eastern DR Congo.

The governor's chief of staff said that the authorities did not regard Mutanga as a direct security threat, but were offering the high reward as a signal that they would not condone impunity.

As well as the bounty offered for his recapture, a reward of $10,000 has been offered for a woman member of the Co-ordination for a Referendum on Self-Determination for Katanga (Corak), a secessionist group said to be behind an attack on Lubumbashi airport in February in which a civilian died, AFP said.

The other fugitives have $500 bounties on their heads.

Escapes and mutinies are common in DR Congo's prisons, analysts say, with the east largely lawless as rival militias battle for power.

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Nearly 1,000 escape in Congo jailbreak

KINSHASA — Nearly 1,000 inmates escaped from a high security prison in Democratic Republic of Congo's top mining town Lubumbashi on Wednesday after gunmen attacked it to free a jailed rebel leader, the local government said.

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One policeman and a visitor were killed in the attack, during which former rebel commander Gedeon Mutanga and the rest of the prisoners escaped, according to the provincial minister of interior, Jean Marie Dikanga Kazadi.

"When the assailants came they started by firing on the guards and the police," he told Reuters by telephone from Lubumbashi. He said 967 people had escaped from the Kasapa prison, but that 152 of them had since been recaptured.

"We're going to put everything in place not only to recapture those that we can recapture but also secure all political, economic and social structures," he said.

Mutanga is the former leader of a rebel group in Katanga -- Congo's largest mining province -- and was convicted of crimes against humanity in 2009.

Lubumbashi is the capital of Katanga. Many international companies operate in Katanga which has vast copper reserves.

The province, which produced about 500,000 tonnes of copper last year, is the most stable in eastern Congo, an area infested by militants. (Editing by Richard Valdmanis)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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Happy Homecoming: Six Poached Baby Gorillas Rescued, Returned to Congo (Time.com)

Six endangered mountain gorillas were returned home to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after being rescued from poachers who smuggled them into neighboring Rwanda.

The gorillas, who range in age from 5 to 8 years old, were victims of what's become a widespread issue in Africa: animal trafficking. According to Rwandan and Congolese authorities, poachers are thought to have killed the gorillas' parents in order to steal their babies and smuggle them across the border.

Rwandan officials told Reuters that it's likely the poachers were planning to either sell the gorillas on the illegal wildlife market or slaughter them for their bushmeat, which is considered a delicacy in some areas of the continent. But because of a renewed collaboration between the Rwandan and Congolese governments, these gorillas were among the very few poached animals that are lucky enough to be rescued.

(MORE: Are Gorillas Rwanda's Post-Civil War Hope?)

"Because the countries are working together, we managed to reduce that [poaching]," Rica Rugambwa, Rwanda's director general of tourism and parks, told Reuters. "We are able to minimize that but it is still a challenge."

It's estimated that only 680 mountain gorillas live in the forests of Central Africa. The species has been listed as critically endangered, and many are protected within the confines of a Ugandan national park. Others live in the Virunga Volcano Region, which stands on the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo - a dangerous area that has been overcome by civil war in recent years.

The six rescued orphans stayed in Rwanda briefly before being airlifted back to Congo, with help from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the conservation groups that sponsored the trip. The gorillas are now being cared for at a rescue center until they are eventually able to be released into the wild.

Erin Skarda is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @ErinLeighSkarda. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Six orphaned gorillas returned to Congo

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Rwanda handed over six orphaned gorillas to the Democratic Republic of Congo after poachers smuggled them out of the country to sell as exotic pets, or for consumption as bush meat.

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Poaching has decimated populations of chimpanzees, gorillas and forest elephants in the jungles of west and central Africa and regional governments have vowed to step up efforts to stop trafficking.

Mountain gorillas are listed as critically endangered, with about 680 surviving in the wild, all in central Africa.

Rwandan authorities said on Sunday they had rescued the gorillas, aged between 5 and 8 years old, from traffickers in various parts of the country.

Officials have detained six Rwandan and Congolese men whom they believe are part of a wider criminal ring. Gorillas are caught and sold for thousands of dollars on the world market as exotic pets, or killed and sold locally as a delicacy.

"Because the countries are working together we managed to reduce that (poaching) .... we are able to minimize that but it is still a challenge," said Rwanda's director general of tourism and parks, Rica Rugambwa, on the Rwandan-Congolese border.

The gorillas were flown from there to a research center and were then due to be released into the wild.

The rare mountain gorillas are found in a Ugandan national park or in the Virunga Volcano Region, which straddles the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo.

The WWF says more than 100,000 people live near the forests where they are found. Poaching, capture for illegal wildlife trade, as well as people's need for land to grow food has reduced the mammals' forest habitat to "virtual islands in the middle of human settlements," WWF says.

Congo's mountain gorillas have also weathered years of warfare in the country's east. Dozens of rangers have been killed trying to protect the area's five national parks from poachers and armed groups.

"We came to finish the war and security is coming slowly," Congolese Environment Minister Chantal Kambibi said. "We will try to protect them properly."

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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