The International Criminal Court Friday ordered 297 victims of ex-Congolese warlord Germain Katanga to each be paid "a symbolic" $250 in damages for a brutal 2003 attack on their village, in the tribunal's first such award.
The award for the people who lost relatives, property or livestock or suffered psychological harm in a deadly attack followed the conviction of Germaine Katanga in 2014 for crimes committed in the attack on Bogoro in the Ituri region of Congo.
The court estimated the "extent of the physical, material and psychological harm suffered by the victims" amounted to more than $3.7 million.
Katanga, serving a 12-year term for war crimes, was liable for $1 million of the total damages.
But it added that he is considered "indigent" and unlikely to be able to pay.
Judges also awarded collective reparations in the form of projects covering "housing, support for income-generating activities, education and psychological support" for victims.
$8,000 for lost relative
Victims who suffered psychological harm after the death of a loved one were entitled to $8,000 for a close family member, or $4,000 for a more distant relative.
Legal representatives for the victims had assessed the damage at $16.4-million in a filing to the court last year. They had calculated that 228 homes were destroyed in the village, that the school was lost and that hundreds of cattle and livestock had fled or been killed.
Five victims representing the group followed the hearing from the village of Bunia with their lawyers.
The Trust Fund for Victims has $5-million available, of which $1-million has been set aside for the case of Thomas Lubanga.
Lubanga, another Congolese warlord, was sentenced in 2012 to 14 years for conscripting child soldiers in the DRC, was the first to see some kind of ICC compensation awarded.
In October, judges approved "symbolic reparations" to create a "living memorial" to remember and raise awareness about child soldiers. But a final decision on collective reparations for Lubanga's victims is still awaited.
The Ituri region where the Bogoro massacre occurred has been riven by violence since 1999, when clashes broke out that killed at least 60,000 people, according to rights groups.