DR Congo massacre uncovered

The Lord's Resistance Army killed about 300 people and kidnapped 250 more in a rampage in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, according to an international rights group and the UN. The previously undocumented massacre, undertaken over four-days in the remote Makombo area of DRC's northeastern Haute Uele district, was highlighted in reports by Human Rights Watch and the UN on Sunday. The killings of 321 civilians occurred between December 14 and 17, HRW said in a report after documenting the deaths in a visit to the region in February. The Ugandan anti-government group were said to have abducted 80 children among the 250 people kidnapped. "The Makombo massacre is one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history, yet it has gone unreported for months," Anneke Van Woudenberg, HRW's senior Africa researcher, said.