III. Methodology

In early December 2008 Human Rights Watch researchers visited Yambio, Sudan, to document the attacks against civilians that had occurred in Congo and in the Sudan in September, October, and November 2008. Subsequently, Human Rights Watch researchers, together with a colleague from the Congolese human rights organization Justice Plus, traveled to northeastern Congo to document the December and January killings 10 days after the worst massacres had occurred and while sporadic attacks were still taking place in the region. They interviewed dozens of victims, witnesses, children, and adults who had escaped LRA abduction, captured LRA combatants, civil society groups, Congolese government authorities, UN officials, and Congolese, Ugandan, and MONUC military officials. They visited sites of killings, including those of the Batande and Faradje massacres, and helped to collect physical evidence present at one of the sites. With the help of local civil society members, Human Rights Watch compiled lists of the persons killed and abducted by the LRA, which are printed in the annex to this report.

Human Rights Watch focused its investigations on attacks in three areas of northeastern Congo adjacent to Garamba National Park[1]: the Doruma area to the west of the park and near the border with Central African Republic (CAR) and southern Sudan; Faradje, southeast of the park; and the Duru area west of the park, near the border with southern Sudan (see map on page 2).