At least 7,000 victims of Angola war to be exhumed in Kuito

LUANDA, Oct 13 (AFP) - Angola began Monday exhuming the bodies of several thousand victims of the country's civil war in the town of Kuito, which was devastated during the 27-year conflict, local reporters said.

The bodies -- estimated by the government at around 7,000 -- will be exhumed from shallow graves in yards, ruined buildings or street corners for reburial at a memorial site near the town.

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Life in Kuito came to a standstill Monday to mark the official start of the exhumations of the town's war victims, who local journalists say probably numbered close to 13,000.

The remains of the local armed forces commander in Kuito, General Alfredo Kussumua, who was killed in battle in 1994, have already been removed from beneath the destroyed local government headquarters in Kuito town centre and buried at the memorial site.

Kuito was especially hard hit during the war, which ended in April last year, having been the scene of heavy fighting in 1993-94 and again between 1997 and 2000.

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