Pope condemns Congo massacre

Pope John Paul today decried a massacre in Congo that killed almost 1,000 people and appealed for efforts at reconciliation .

He said the killings and summary executions were “no less worrisome” than the news of “destruction and deaths” in Iraq.

The Congolese government and the United Nations have agreed to joint investigations of the killing of 966 people in an assault on April 3 on a Roman Catholic mission and surrounding villages in the north-east of the vast central African country.

It has been described as the worst atrocity in Congo’s four-and-a-half-year civil war.