Congolese rebels behead 42 police officers in dramatic escalation of conflict

Violence in the Kasai region of Congo appears to be escalating significantly, as reports emerged over the weekend of the decapitation of 42 police officers tasked with fighting a regional militia known as Kamuina Nsapu.

The group is also suspected of having kidnapped an American man, a Swedish woman and four Congolese citizens working with the United Nations to investigate recent clashes between the militia and government forces. The United Nations deployed Uruguayan and Tanzanian peacekeepers on a search-and-rescue mission two weeks ago, but they are complaining of obstruction from the Congolese government.

The Kasai region is exceptionally poor and remote in a country that is largely without public infrastructure and teeters on the brink of lawlessness. No one from the vast region has ever led Congo — officially known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the DRC — and it is the home province of the recently deceased opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi. Across Congo, ethnic tension has combined with feelings of regional neglect to produce large-scale conflicts over the past two decades. The recent fighting in Kasai has followed a familiar trajectory.

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of Reuters