Congo army 'killed 50 civilians in UN-backed ops'

Congolese government soldiers killed at least 50 Rwandan civilian refugees during United Nations-backed operations against rebels in the east earlier this year, a U.N. investigator said on Thursday. The report is likely to intensify pressure on the U.N.'s Congo peacekeeping force, which is already under fire for backing the army in operations against Rwandan rebels despite complaints about abuse by soldiers and the high number of civilians being caught up in the violence. "I think the general details are fairly straightforward in terms of the (army) going into a camp which was occupied largely by women, children and the elderly, carrying out a determined attempt to eliminate everyone in the camp," said Philip Alston, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. Alston said the massacre happened when the soldiers, mainly former Congolese Tutsi rebels integrated into the army as part of a January peace deal, attacked the village of Shalio on April 27 during an offensive into South Kivu province.