The Ugandan army on Sunday accused Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels of hacking to death 45 people in a church in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. An aid official confirmed Friday's massacre, saying the killings took place in a Catholic church in the Doruma area, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Sudanese border.
"We got information the rebels cut 45 people into pieces," army spokesman Captain Chris Magezi said. "They were cut with pangas (machetes) and hit with clubs but some luckily managed to escape. Our forces came to know about the killings while pursuing the LRA yesterday (Saturday) and the pursuit is on for the killers," he added.
Magezi said the victims, mostly women, children and the elderly, were mutilated in the style used by Hutu extremists during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Forces from Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and south Sudan launched a joint operation against the Ugandan LRA rebels in north-eastern DR Congo earlier this month. The aid official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said there were scenes of carnage in and around the church where the killings took place.
"There are body parts everywhere. Inside the church, the entrance and in the church compound," said the official. The vice-governor of Orientale province, Joseph Bangakya Angaze, told AFP by telephone that "fighting has broken out around Doruma since Friday, between elements of the LRA and local groups" set up to defend their communities.
Magezi had also accused the rebels of killing 35 civilians in attacks on Wednesday and Thursday in areas in south Sudan and north-eastern DR Congo.
But LRA spokesman David Nyekorach Matsanga denied the rebels were behind the killings. "Reports about the LRA killing innocent civilians is another propaganda campaign by the Uganda army," Matsanga told AFP.
"I am not a military spokesman for the LRA but I have it on good authority from the field commanders that the LRA is not in those areas where the killings are reported to have taken place.
"We need an independent verification to know who is responsible for these killings in Doruma because LRA has stated before we want peace not war because fighting won't help," he said. The two sides have been engaged in peace talks led by the government of South Sudan for more than two years.
Kony has repeatedly refused to sign a peace deal with Kampala because of International Criminal Court arrest warrants against him and his lieutenants for war crimes.