Toddlers have had their limbs cut off, babies have been shot and pregnant women have been sliced open in a blaze of violence in Congo, the UN has said.

The Bana Mura militia, which is backed by the country's government, has been committing horrific, ethnically motivated crimes over several months.

Observers say the Congolese army accompanied the militia during attacks on villages, in which they carried out executions and rape.

The UN's human rights chief Prince Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein has said the situation has got dramatically worse in the past three months.

And he added: "Refugees from multiple villages in the Kamonya territory indicated that the Bana Mura have in the past two months shot dead, hacked or burned to death, and mutilated, hundreds of villagers, as well as destroying entire villages.


"My team saw children as young as two, whose limbs had been chopped off. Many babies had machete wounds and severe burns."

Speaking to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, he accused the Congolese government of failing to protect its people.

He also said that the attacks on civilians were widespread and apparently planned.

Investigations into the violence have "clearly been insufficient", he added.

Prince Zeid's comments came on the same day that the Catholic church claimed more than 3,300 people have been killed in the central Kasai region - an opposition stronghold - since October.

Releasing a detailed report, the church said the army had destroyed 10 villages in the area bordering Angola as part of an effort to stamp out an insurrection.

Some 42 mass graves have been uncovered in the area.

The UN Human Rights Council will decide this week whether to go ahead with an investigation into the violence in Kasai. Congo's government is against an outside investigation.