A human rights group says at least 321 civilians were killed by the Lord's Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a previously unreported massacre in late 2009.
New York-based Human Rights Watch adds that at least 250 people were abducted by the rebels, including at least 80 children during the killing spree in the Makombo area of northeastern Congo.
The BBC reports that the UN was warned of an attack 'around Christmas', leading them to reinforce troops in the area - but they were deployed to the wrong locations.
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Critics maintain that Congolese and Ugandan forces in the area should work more closely with the UN - and vice versa - to counter the LRA.
The Army force-marched villagers, beating to death those who were unable to keep with the pace of the march, reports the BBC, which claims to have unearthed solid evidence of the crimes.
"I saw with my own eyes 268 dead bodies, because we buried them - there was no-one else to do it,", Lt Jeanvier Bahati pf the Congolese Army said.
Senior Africa researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg calls the massacre "one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history".
Yet the massacre targeting at least 10 villages, which occurred from December 14-17, 2009, went unreported for months.
Van Woudenberg said civilians need to be protected.
"Rather than ignoring the facts, the governments of the region and UN peacekeepers should co-ordinate their efforts to protect civilians and develop a comprehensive strategy to resolve the LRA problem once and for all," she said.
The LRA is a Ugandan rebel movement that was pushed out of Uganda and is now in a tropical forest straddling the border between Congo and the Central African Republic.
