INSURGENTS killed at least 140 people in farming communities in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in July, Human Rights Watch said today, describing the killings as “summary executions.”

The NGO reported that 141 people, mainly Hutus, were feared dead or missing after attacks near Virunga National Park in North Kivu province, citing local experts and witness accounts.

Human Rights Watch said the killings appeared to be part of a military campaign by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a largely Hutu armed group.

Nearly two million Hutus fled to the DRC after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which killed around 800,000 Tutsi, moderate Hutus and others.

Rwandan authorities have long accused those who fled of taking part in the genocide and claimed that the Congolese army offered them protection.

Human Rights Watch senior researcher Clementine de Montjoye said: “The M23 armed group, which has Rwandan government backing, attacked over a dozen villages and farming areas in July and committed dozens of summary executions of primarily Hutu civilians.”

Witnesses said M23 soldiers, accompanied by Rwandan troops identified by their accents, ordered villagers to “immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from organising funerals.”

One woman recalled being forced with around 70 others to a riverbank near the town of Kafuru, where soldiers lined them up and opened fire.

The NGO said 47 people, including children, had been confirmed killed in that incident.

M23 military spokesman Willy Ngoma dismissed the report as “military propaganda.”

The report said that Rwandan forces were directly involved in the July operations, citing UN and military sources as well as eyewitnesses.

Rwanda’s government did not immediately comment.

The United Nations has described the conflict in the east of the DRC as “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”