Five civilians killed in M23 attack in northeast DR Congo

MADRID Dec. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Five civilians have been killed in the northeast of the Republic of Congo by an attack by the March 23 Movement (M23) militias in Ngwenda, about twelve kilometers from Kiwanja, in the territory of Rutshuru, in North Kivu. Among the deceased are three women.

“There have been attacks in the villages of Ngwenda and Kiseguro this Saturday and five civilians have been massacred in attacks by the M23 against the wazalendos” (“patriots” in Swahili), the self-defense groups, explained the president of the civil society in Rutshuru, Jean-Claude Bambaze, quoted by the Congolese news portal Actualité.

“These people are abandoned by our government. We still do not know if the bodies are in the morgue,” added Bambaze, who has warned of the escalation of tension between the armed groups that want to control this region.

This same Saturday, Congolese Army helicopters attacked positions of the M23 rebels in Mambasa and Alimbongo. This last town has a strategic character and is controlled by rebel militias, according to the Radio Okapi station.

The M23 is a rebel group composed mainly of Congolese Tutsis that operates mainly in the province of North Kivu. After a conflict between 2012 and 2013, a peace agreement was signed, although the group launched a new offensive at the end of 2022, which has caused a diplomatic crisis between the DRC and Rwanda over their support for the group, raising fears of a conflict large scale.

Rwandan authorities, for their part, accuse the DRC government of repressing Congolese Tutsis with the support of armed groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), founded and composed mainly of Hutus responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.