The Hague - Two Congolese militiamen accused of seeking to wipe out a village blocking a strategic route in an ethnic war, enter the dock in The Hague Tuesday for the International Criminal Court's second trial.

German Katanga, 31, and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, 39, stand accused over an attack by their forces on the village of Bogoro in the Democratic Republic of Congo's north-eastern Ituri region that killed 200 people in February 2003.

They deny guilt on ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including charges of murder, rape, sexual slavery, using child soldiers, attacking civilians, pillaging and destruction of property.

The prosecution alleges that more than a thousand fighters of Katanga's Patriotic Resistance Force (FRPI) and Ngudjolo's Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) entered Bogoro on February 24 six years ago "with one communicated and agreed goal: to erase the village of Bogoro".

Non-governmental bodies claim that inter-ethnic and militia violence in Ituri is about control of the area's gold mines, and has claimed 60,000 lives since 1999.

The ICC started operating as the world's first permanent and independent war crimes tribunal in 2002. It is the only international tribunal to allow for victims to be represented by legal counsel and participate at trial.