************************************************************* 13/04/2004 UN to step up Congo massacre investigation AFP
The United Nations says it would send more investigators to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after bodies were found in shallow graves near the site of a reported massacre.
Reports that at least 25 people had been killed in three days of carnage in the village of Lukweti last month are followed by the discovery of the corpses in the past few days.
Spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard says the bodies are "coming out of the mud" in Lukweti, north-east of Goma in the province of North Kivu.
The discovery comes after what she describes as a rebel attack in which around 150 homes were also burned down.
The UN says the attackers have been variously identified as rebels involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, tribal militias allied with the previous DRC government and partisans of the main rebel movement, the Congolese Rally for Democracy.
Additional investigators will head to the Lukweti region next week.
***************************************** 13/04/2004 Tension between bitterly opposed ethnic groups in northeastern DRC remains high By Francois-Xavier Harispe AFP
Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo - Tension between bitterly opposed ethnic groups in northeastern DRC remains high as the United Nations force there anxiously grapples with the problem of thousands of armed militia waiting to be disarmed.
About 15 000 combatants - including 600 children - in the volatile Ituri province are twiddling their thumbs in holding camps without any aid while the Kinshasa authorities decide their future.
"They are beginning to get restless, and of course survive by extortion activities in nearby communities," one UN official from the mission in the DRC (Monuc) said.