GENEVA (AP) — Congo’s armed forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have committed crimes including gang rape, sexual slavery, torture, killings of civilians and other “horrific” atrocities in eastern Congo over the last year, the U.N. human rights office said Friday. It said the governments of both countries bear responsibility.

A new report by a fact-finding team of experts that visited the region between March and August warned of the prospect of war crimes and crimes against humanity that may have been committed since late 2024 and since the decades-long conflict in the central African nation escalated in January, when M23 fighters seized the strategic eastern city of Goma.

“The atrocities described in this report are horrific,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations’ off

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