TBD
Report on human rights violations in DR Congo to be released on 1 October
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay announced on Thursday that the report on human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will be made public on 1 October 2010.
Navi Pillay
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.
Most of these attacks were directed against non-combatant civilian populations consisting primarily of women and children.
Over 1,280 witnesses were interviewed to corroborate or invalidate alleged violations, including previously undocumented incidents.
More than 1,500 documents were collected and analysed during the two years that it took to research and write the report.
UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville recalls how the mapping exercise, which was endorsed by the Security Council in 2007, started.
"Essentially the genesis is in 2005. Three mass graves were discovered in the eastern DRC and several UN bodies agreed in 2006 to recommend a mapping exercise of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in that ten year period 1993 to 2003."
The UN human rights chief says that following requests, her office decided to give concerned states a further month to comment on the draft.
Navi Pillay has offered to make public any such comments alongside the report itself on 1 October if the states concerned so wish.
Dianne Penn, United Nations Radio
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