MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping force in the DRC, said the reported killings were under investigation but remained unverified.

More than 50 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo's north-west have died of an unidentified illness, most within 58 hours of showing symptoms.

Until now, the international response to the rapidly escalating crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has committed a litany of grave abuses, has been all talk and no action.

Seventy Christians were allegedly decapitated by Islamist extremists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) just over a week ago, but the group accused of carrying out the massacre has been terrorizing communities for over a decade.