M23 militia’s advance in eastern DRC has killed 7,000 since January, UN told

M23 members in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, where the militia was accused of killing three children last week. Photograph: Luis Tato/AFP/Getty Images

About 7,000 people have died in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since Rwanda-backed M23 rebels started renewed advances in January, the DRC’s prime minister has said.

At a high-level meeting of the UN’s human rights council in Geneva on Monday, Judith Suminwa Tuluka also said the war had left about 450,000 people without shelter after the destruction of 90 displacement camps.