By Al-hadji Kudra Maliro

GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo

At least 175 people have been kidnapped for ransom during 2015 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Former and current members of armed groups appear responsible for many of the kidnappings.

The vast majority of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch were in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu province, in the eastern part of the country.

At least three hostages were killed while another was fatally shot in a kidnapping attempt. One remains missing. Nearly all hostages were released after relatives or employers paid ransom. Twenty of the victims were Congolese and international aid workers.

Ida Sawyer, a senior researcher in the Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told Anadolu Agency that the Congolese authorities should urgently establish a special police unit to help rescue hostages, and to conduct investigations and prosecutions against the kidnappers.

Human Rights Watch report that relatives of many hostages do not inform the police, either because they believed they would get no assistance or because they feared that it might make matters worse or that they would face further extortion from the authorities.

One former hostage said that when her mother told a judicial official in Goma that her daughter had been kidnapped, his only response was that the mother should "go pay", added Sawyer.

In the cases Human Rights Watch documented, kidnappers demanded between US$200 and US$30,000 per hostage, though the amounts paid were often much lower than the amount sought, according to relatives and former hostages.