Army tracks DRC massacre rebels

Goma - The Congolese army on Wednesday searched for suspected Ugandan rebels in villages in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the massacre of around 100 people last week, the UN said.

The army followed leads from locals around Beni, near the sites of last Thursday's killings, according to the Twitter account of UN mission Monusco.

Mainly Muslim Ugandan rebels have been blamed for killing more than 200 civilians in machete attacks since October in the restive North Kivu province, where Beni lies.

Local officials said the army had cordoned off the area where Thursday's massacre took place, while Monusco forces were patrolling the region.

The army arrested 34 armed men and 10 civilians on Monday, and recovered 24 weapons, according to Monusco.

In January, the Congolese army and Monusco soldiers began an offensive against Ugandan rebels from the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU), the last major insurgent group active in the region.

Initially, they thought they had severely weakened them, but the rebels have bounced back since the death in August of Congolese army chief General Jean-Lucien Bahuma.

A Monusco police patrol was ambushed near Beni last Thursday, leaving no officers injured despite a lengthy shootout.

The Beni massacre came as security deteriorated across Nord Kivu.

The UN on Wednesday deplored the death of a humanitarian worker in an ambush two days earlier in the southeast of the province.

The employee was a Congolese worker from the International Rescue Committee, according to a humanitarian source.