Guinea pigs to feed starving

A South American research group says it may have found a way to fill hungry bellies in conflict-torn Congo: with guinea pigs.

The small rodents could provide war-battered villages with "a much-needed source of protein and micro-nutrients in a country with some of the highest incidences of malnutrition in the world", says the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, or CIAT.

CIAT researchers found the South American natives being kept as "micro-livestock" in the North and South Kivu provinces.