CONGO: UN investigators have begun sifting through dozens of skulls and bones unearthed at three mass graves in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congolese troops identified the sites about 48 km (30 miles) north of Goma in the east of the country, after being told of their existence by residents, UN spokeswoman Jacqueline Chenard said .The graves are thought to hold the remains of hundreds of Rwandan Hutus and Congolese citizens killed at the start of the country's civil war in 1996.
At the time the Rwandan army was patrolling deep over the border hunting down the Hutu militias that were responsible for the genocide that killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
The militias - and millions of Hutu civilians - had fled into the Congo at the end of Rwanda's civil war fearing reprisals by the Tutsi-dominated government.
Most have returned home, but an estimated 12,000 fighters remain in hiding among the Congo's lawless forests.
Col Shekasikila, of the Congolese 5th Brigade which exhumed the remains, said: "We believe that thousands of people were massacred and that we will discover more graves.
"We found the first one as we were doing digging work to build a latrine, then town residents showed us two other spots where there were bones."
A second officer, who did not give his name, told the AFP news agency that Rwandan troops "gathered people together under the pretext of a meeting and then murdered them, most of the time with a machete blow to the back of the neck".
Survivors of the killings also told UN officials that more than 300 people were slaughtered with guns and machetes by Congolese rebels backed by Rwandan soldiers.
The Congolese rebels were led by Laurent Kabila, the late father of President Joseph Kabila.
Human rights groups and residents of both countries allege Rwandan troops killed thousands of Rwandan Hutus - combatants and their families - as they advanced across Congo in 1996-1997.
The country, one of Africa's most resource-rich states, was in political turmoil at the time, which eventually led to the overthrow of its dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Much of the east of the country remains unstable.
UN troops continue to keep the peace in the Congo for fear of civil war.