BUNIA, Congo — They call the machete a weapon of mass destruction here.
Its ghastly wreckage can be found inside what passes as this town's only functioning hospital. On a thin, foam mattress lies a wide-eyed old man who has survived an attempted decapitation. Nearby, a mother with black moons around her eyes nurses two wounded children back to health and mourns for another two, freshly killed.
It is estimated that more than 3 million people have died in the Congo's 4-year-old war, as a dizzying array of rival rebel armies and their patrons from at least nine neighboring countries have fought over the Congo's enormous spoils. Gold, diamonds and coltan, a mineral used in cell phones, are among the most precious loot in the Ituri province, and peace deals so far have done nothing to stanch the bloodletting. The latest massacre took place over several days earlier this month, as militias belonging to rival Hema and Lendu tribes battled for control of this, Ituri's largest town.
Monday, the death toll stands at 350. Most have been buried in unmarked graves, since their remains offered few details about who they were, let alone which of the warring ethnic groups they belonged to. As many as 17,000 people are huddled inside the tent cities that have sprung up inside a U.N. compound, at the airport and in the heart of town.
An eerie calm hangs over Bunia. There is no telling when the next round of carnage will unfold, nor whether the U.N. Security Council will send troops to bring order. The secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has appealed to member states to send soldiers for a multinational force here.
By the standards and logic of war in the Congo, the Bunia massacre was neither unexpected nor extraordinary. The only thing that distinguished this one was that it happened before the eyes of U.N. peacekeepers who had warned of its risks.
If nothing else, the Bunia massacre has revealed, with graphic and embarrassing detail, the impotence of the international reaction to the horrors that have befallen the Congo, U.N. officials, aid workers and human rights advocates say.
Most of the war's 3 million-plus fatalities have been attributed to starvation and disease among people in small villages who have been routed or fled in terror from their homes and are forced to fight for survival in the forests. Yet, the Security Council has authorized just 8,700 soldiers for the U.N. mission in Congo to monitor peace in a country about a fourth the size of the United States.
"It's an abysmal response by the United Nations," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch in London. "If the United Nations is serious about peacekeeping, the protection of civilians, if they are going to prevent mass killings, this is a critical test."