NAIROBI: Marauding rebels are massacring and eating pygmies in the dense forests of north-east Congo, according to UN officials who are investigating allegations of cannibalism in Ituri province, where fighting between several rebel groups has displaced about 150,000 people in the past month.

Many of the displaced tell of rebel fighters capturing and butchering pygmies, Manoddje Mounoubai, spokesman for the UN ceasefire monitoring mission in Congo, said on Wednesday.

The UN had sent six officials to investigate the accusation as well as other human rights abuses, he said. Other UN officials in the capital, Kinshasa, and the eastern city of Goma said that widespread cannibalism had already been established.

“Ituri is completely out of control and cannibalism is just the latest atrocity taking place,” said one, who asked not to be named until the investigators deliver their report.

Ituri’s forest-dwelling pygmy tribes have been caught between opposing groups supporting the government and Ugandan- backed rebel groups in the last battles of Congo’s four-year civil war.

The two Ugandan-backed movements routinely enslave pygmies to forage for forest food and prospect for minerals, a UN official said. Hunters returning empty-handed were killed and eaten. Sudi Alimasi, an official of the pro-government group Rally for Congolese Democracy-ML, said it had begun receiving reports of cannibalism from people displaced by fighting more than a week ago.

Cannibalism has re-emerged throughout eastern Congo as the last vestiges of colonial influence have been eroded during the war. Much of the vast forested area is controlled by the Mayi- Mayi, a loose grouping of tribal militias united by their magical beliefs and taste for human flesh. On a recent assignment in eastern Congo the correspondent for the London-based Guardian newspaper saw many Mayi-Mayi fighters wearing parts of the bodies of their Rwandan enemies, in the belief that this would make them invincible.

“We are hearing reports of untold horrors in Ituri,” said Wyger Wentholt, of Medecins sans Frontieres.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.