The United Nations says it has found more mass graves in the DRC’s central Kasai region.
The latest discovery takes the number of mass burial sites from 10 to 23.
It comes amid an increase in violence in the area that has seen the killing of two UN investigators.
At this stage, investigators don’t know the number of people buried at these sites, or who carried out the killings.
Under UN regulations, they have informed the Congolese government who will now work to identify the dead.
Just last week, the UN team found the bodies of two of its investigators who had gone missing in the region earlier in the month.
The International Criminal Court says the acts of violence the UN has documented in the region could constitute war crimes.
These discoveries come at a time when the world body is grappling with the Democratic Republic of Congo, trying to work out how to make its largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation more effective.
On Friday, the UN Security Council renewed its mission in the country for another 12 months.
However, it agreed to lower the cap on the number of troops it can deploy to the troubled country by 18%.
The U.S. had wanted to cut it even further – by a quarter – but other countries expressed reservations about whether now was the right time for such a reduction considering the recent uptick in violence.
The Security Council is likely to discuss the situation in the country, should it worsen, later this month.
But at this stage, no date for that meeting has been set. For now, it is likely to try and increase the pressure on President Joseph Kabila and the Congolese security forces to increase their efforts to maintain control of the Kasai region.
The Council is concerned that this will be a contentious year, with the delayed Presidential election due to take place before the end of 2017. With that looming, it fears violence could intense before the year is out.
