- At least 100 people, mostly unarmed civilians, have been
killed in a wave of horrific attacks in southern Democratic Republic of
Congo.
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- One survivor told the BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in Lubumbashi
that militiamen drained the blood of those they killed and put it into
bottles.
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- "After they had cut off the sexual organs, they
walked away with them. They took the victims' blood in flasks," said
Claude Panza wa Losol, 22, nursing a bullet wound in his arm in the town's
Don Bosco hospital.
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- The military commander of Katanga province, General Alengbia
Nzambe, showed our correspondent pictures of the bodies of seven soldiers
who had their faces and genitals cut off.
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- Our correspondent says that many fighters believe that
using the body parts of their victims to make charms will make them more
powerful.
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- Bloodshed fears
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- The attacks are blamed on a militia led by General "Chinja
Chinja" or the Ripper.
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- Congolese military officials say that he is the last
remaining militia leader in the north of Katanga province who is unwilling
to integrate into the new Congolese army.
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- After five years of war, former rebel forces are being
merged into a new united army under a peace deal.
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- Some 10,000 United Nations peacekeepers are in DR Congo
to monitor a peace accord but they have not been sent to the scene of the
atrocities.
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- UN spokesman Hamidoun Toure said that verifications were
being made.
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- General Alengbia Nzambe has said that he will neutralise
the Ripper.
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- But an aid worker in the region said that given the atrocities
which were committed by the Ripper, he feared that a response from the
Congolese army could generate more bloodshed.
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- © BBC MMIV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3516481.stm
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