U.N. Probes Report of 100 Killed in Congo

KINSHASA, Congo - The U.N. Congo mission is investigating reports of massacres of about 100 civilians and seven soldiers by Mayi-Mayi tribal fighters in the country's southeast, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.

Congo's army and rights groups have blame the killings on a Mayi-Mayi commander who goes by the name of Cut-Throat, and reportedly mutilates many of his victims. In one case, Mayi-Mayi fighters threw a grenade into a church, killing 25 people inside, Congo Gen. Dieugentil Mpia Nzambe Nzambe said.

The killings allegedly happened in Katanga province, 960 miles from the capital Kinshasa, in January, U.N. mission spokesman Hamadoun Toure said. A U.N. Congo mission team set out for the remote area earlier this month to investigate.

Congo's military confirmed that civilians had been massacred.

The government and U.N. mission in Congo are trying to assert control nationwide after a five-year war that split the country, about the size of Western Europe, into rebel and government turf.

Ethnic militias continue attacks in Congo's lawless east. The Mayi-Mayi were loosely allied with the government during the war.

"For us, this is a group of armed bandits who continue to kill, to loot the people and rape the women," Nzambe told The Associated Press. "We cannot understand why the Mayi-Mayi continue to act this way."

The Mayi-Mayi are known for severing the tongues, fingers and other parts of their victims, said Bin Masudi, coordinator of the private Committee to Defend Human Rights in Kinshasa.

Earlier in January, Mayi-Mayi fighters kidnapped a delegation Congolese officers who had gone to negotiate on disbanding the group, Nzambe said. Authorities paid a ransom for the officers' release, he said.