GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, July 2 (UPI) -- U.N.-backed Congo armed forces are allegedly waging brutal attacks on civilians they are supposed to be protecting, an international human rights group charges.
Military operations in eastern and northern areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo have not only failed to protect civilians from rebel retaliatory attacks but have joined at times in attacking and raping civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a release Thursday.
The Congolese army in December initiated military operations against the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels in northern Congo and a month later against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, the Rwandan Hutu militia, in the east.
Since then, Human Rights Watch charges, the rebel forces and Congolese army troops combined have killed more than 1,500 civilians, raped thousands of women and girls, abducted hundreds of adults and children and burned to the ground thousands of homes, sometimes entire villages.
