Ethnic violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central region of Great Kasai has forced more than 20,000 people to flee their homes since late March, the UN's refugee agency said Friday.
"According to local authorities, an estimated 21,000 Congolese -- mainly women and children -- have been displaced since 28 March by clashes between Luba and Kuba ethnic groups in Kasai's Bakwa-Kenge locality," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement."There have also been reports of at least 13 people being killed, many left injured and 190 houses burnt to the ground."
The two groups are locked in a decades-long dispute over land.
The vast Kasai region is still recovering from fighting in 2016-2017 sparked by the death of a local chief, Kamuina Nsapu, by the DRC security forces.
An insurrection by his followers triggered a conflict that claimed 3,400 lives, left 1.4 million people internally displaced and prompted 35,000 others to flee to neighbouring Angola.