UN to release DRC violence report in October

A long-awaited report on human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( DRC) will be released on Oct. 1, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters here on Thursday.

Haq said that UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay has set the release date in response to requests from member states that want more time to comment on the draft. The member states will be able to have their comments published, if they so choose.

"The report describes a total of more than 600 incidents in the DRC between 1993 and 2003 in which tens of thousands of people were killed," Haq said. "Most of these attacks were directed against non-combatant civilian populations consisting primarily of women and children."

The draft report has created some controversy of late as a leaked copy indicated that it alleges Rwandan forces may have committed genocide in the DRC between 1996 and 1997. Rwanda responded on Tuesday by denying such charges, and indicating that it may withdraw its forces from UN peacekeeping operations as a result of any genocide allegations.

"More than 1,280 witnesses were interviewed to corroborate or invalidate alleged violations including previously undocumented incidents, and more than 1,500 documents were collected and analyzed during the two years that it took to research and write the report," said Haq.

Source: Xinhua