Over 421 bodies have been found in an unmarked burial ground near Kinshasa.

Polemics have continued to persist on the way forward in handling the issue of at least 421 bodies found in an unmarked burial ground in Maluku, some 100 km from the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa.

The United States of America (U.S.A)-based watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) and opposition lawmakers on Monday, April 6, 2015 said the bodies found in the mass grave have to be investigated to see if any of the people killed during anti-government protests in January 2015 have been buried there, BBC said. At least 40 people died in the violent protests against a proposed law to require a national census before an election, a move that opponents said was an attempt to delay the vote and extend President Joseph Kabila's mandate, Reuters reported. 

Ida Sawyer, senior researcher for HRW in Congo, Reuters cited, said bodies went missing both during the protests as well as in an anti-gang operation in late 2013 and early 2014, in which the group says at least 51 people were killed. "Further investigations are required to determine if the bodies of those killed in January are among those buried in Maluku," she quoted as having said.

Government, Reuters reported said on Friday, April 3, 2015  that local authorities had buried the corpses overnight on March 19 in the rural commune of Maluku, saying they were dead fetuses and still-born babies as well as unclaimed corpses. The government says the bodies were buried individually and not in a mass grave. RFI cited government sources as saying that 424 bodies were buried. Congo's Justice Minister, Alexis Thambwe, earlier said on Friday the government was prepared to exhume all the corpses should anyone raise the "slightest doubt" about the circumstances of their deaths.