(ANSA) - KINSHASA, DECEMBER 05 - "About 300 people" were killed by the massacre perpetrated on November 29 in the village of Kishishe and of which the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accuses the rebels of the M23 group: said Julien Paluku, Minister of Industry of the DRC and former governor of North Kivu, the province where the massacre took place.
Paluku provided the new estimate when speaking at a press conference with government spokesman Patrick Muyaya.
Last Thursday the army had accused the M23 of having massacred at least 50 civilians in the village in the east of the country, updating the day after the toll to "more than a hundred" dead.
The rebel movement rejected the accusations and acknowledged the deaths of only 8 civilians killed, according to them, by "flying bullets" during clashes with other militiamen.
Paluku and Muyaya, also minister (of Communications), specified that the number of victims comes to them among other things from an "organization that brings together all the communities" of the region.
The former governor of the North Kivu province from 2007 to 2019 underlined that the dead are civilians unrelated to the militias and the government spokesman said that there are also 17 children among them, at least "according to initial data".
(HANDLE).
