If you thought that the atrocities of the type engineered by Stalin, Mao, and Hitler were a thing of the past, think again.

Last week, 80,000 refugees mysteriously disappeared from two refugee camps in war-torn Zaire. It now appears that the Hutu refugees fled into the dense jungle of Eastern Zaire to escape rebel soldiers and villagers who pursued them.

Many of the refugees, mostly women and children, were hacked to death by their machete-wielding pursuers. Demonstrating that there is no depth to which they will not sink, the rebel soldiers apparently took 50 ill children from a United Nations Children’s Fund Hospital and murdered them.

These massacres are taking place as rebel leader Laurent Kabila attempts to put the final touches on his overthrow of corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. As Kabila has consolidated his power, his troops have sought to revenge the earlier genocidal attacks made by the Hutus on Kabila’s tribe, the Tutsis.

Regardless of how the political situation in Zaire is resolved, one things seems certain — the insanity of mass murder will not stop soon.

(Source: New York Newsday.)