Cannibalism In Congo Alleged

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29767, 9 March 1962, Page 13

Cannibalism In Congo Alleged

(N .Z.P_A.-Reuter — Copyright) LONDON, March 8. Baluba tribesmen in a camp outside Elisabethville were “eating each other at the rate of about two or three a day,” a Government member, Sir William Teeling, claimed in the House of Commons last night.

Thousands of them had been “pushed” by the United Nations into something resembling a concentration camp and they were dying at the rate of 40 a week, he said. There were United Nations troops in the town, including Irish and Swedish, but the United Nations seemed to have no organisation over these people, he said.

He added: "Here we are sending money to the United Nations to help them presumably to carry on their fighting in Katanga and al! they can do as far as one can see is to destroy the one and only Government there which is multi-racial and in. te rested in linking up with Rhodesia."

Mr Peter Thomas, the Foreign Under - Secretary, said the refugee camp contained about 45,000 Baluba tribesmen living in conditions of the “most appalling squalor."

During the hostilities, hundreds of these refugee tribesmen left the camp and roamed through the residential centres, he said. The owners of six British properties had reported that their properties had been occupied by United Nations troops. Mr Thomas said that depending on the facts of each case, there appeared to be three parties against whom claims for damages in Katanga might be made, including the northern part These were the Central Government, the provincial Government and the United Nations.

In half the cases of alleged pillage, responsibility was not clear. On receipt of proof, the

British Government was perfectly prepared to assist claims against the United Nations, said Mr Thomas. He added that • a complete abandonment by the United Nations of the Congo leading to the possibility of civil war would constitute a grave threat to British residents.