51 sentenced to death in DR Congo

A military court in Democratic Republic of Congo Saturday sentenced 51 people to death, several in absentia, in a mass trial over the 2017 murder of two UN experts in a troubled central region.

Unrest in the Kasai region had broken out in 2016, triggered by the killing of a local traditional chief by the security forces. Around 3,400 people were kille. The conflict fizzled out in mid-2017.

Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, a Swedish-Chilean, disappeared as they probed violence in the region after being hired to do so by the United Nations. Their bodies were found in a village on March 28, 2017, 16 days after they went missing. Catalan had been beheaded.