The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on 6 June 2017, has indicated that it will wait for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to undertake investigations into the violence in the Kasai province within two days, brandishing the threat of an international investigation.
« Unless I receive appropriate government responses for a joint investigation by June 8, I will insist on the establishment of an international investigative mechanism for the Kasai, » said High Commissioner Zeid Ra’Ad Al Hussein.
Zeid, who has been calling for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry on violence in the DRC since the discovery of mass graves in March, so said at the opening of the 35th session of the Human Rights Council In Geneva (from June 6 to 23).
Zeid also deplored the difficulties of access to the DRC and announced the sending, next week, of a team to neighboring countries to meet the people who fled the attacks.
Since September, the Kasai region has been shaken by the rebellion of Kamwina Nsapu, a traditional chief killed in August 2016, after having rebelled against the authorities in Kinshasa.
According to the UN, the violence killed more than 400 people and caused the displacement of 1.3 million people. An opposition MP from the region estimated the death toll at more than 3,000. In the central provinces of the DRC, the UN has counted 40 mass graves.