Senegal ? At least 321 civilians were killed in a previously unreported massacre in Congo in late 2009, while villagers that escaped their rebel captors were sent back with their lips and ears cut off as a warning to others of what would happen if they tried to talk, according to an investigation by a human rights group.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in its report released Saturday that at least 250 more people were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels during the attack in the Makombo area of northeastern Congo, including no less than 80 children.

Human Rights Watch’s senior Africa researcher, Anneke Van Woudenberg, called the massacre “one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history.”