There has been a pattern of excessive use of force in the repression of dissenting voices across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a senior UN official in the country has warned.

Jose Maria Aranaz, the Director of the UN Joint Human Rights Office of MONUSCO, the UN Mission in the DRC, made the remarks on Wednesday.

A report by his office found that defence and security forces used “excessive, disproportionate and at times lethal force” to prevent and contain protests in December 2016.

The fact that lethal weapons are deployed for crowd control is one of the reasons why so many people were killed and injured, Mr Aranaz told Jocelyne Sambira.

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