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http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19990111_feat1.html
Day Of Prayers For Makobola Victims
January 11, 1999
Kinshasa, Congo (PANA) - A day of prayers was observed Sunday in Kinshasa in
memory of those massacred by rebels of the Congolese Rally for Democracy in the
eastern province of South Kivu at the end of 1998.
Radio and television stations devoted a large part of their air time to broadcasting religious and patriotic songs, while churches and other places of worship held prayers in memory of the victims.
From 30 December to 1 January, the rebels killed about 615 people in Makobola, 35 km from Uvira. They also killed officers of the Congolese Armed Forces at the Kavumu Airport in Bukavu on 3 August, and more than 600 people in Kassika on 24 August.
The National League for Free and Fair Elections, a Kinshasa-based human rights NGO, has called on the international community to condemn the Makobola massacres.
The rebels, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, have been fighting the DRC since the beginning of August to unseat President Laurent Kabila, who came to power with the assistance of the two countries in May 1997.
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