MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping force in the DRC, said the reported killings were under investigation but remained unverified.

An unknown disease that poses a ‘significant public health threat’ has already killed more than 50 people. The disease started on January 21 in Boloko, in the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC ), after three children ate a dead bat, according to the World Health Organisation (WHOs) Africa office.

Congo says over 7,000 people have died this year as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have captured unprecedented amounts of territory in its mineral-rich eastern region.

Until now, the international response to the rapidly escalating crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has committed a litany of grave abuses, has been all talk and no action.

An unknown illness first discovered in three children who ate a bat has rapidly killed more than 50 people in northwestern Congo over the past five weeks, health experts say.

An unknown illness has killed more than 50 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to doctors in the country and global health authorities. The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases,

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported more than 50 deaths from an unknown illness in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has an extremely short window between symptoms and death