DRC-Masisi: more than 17 people killed by local militias in two months

More than 17 people from the Bahunde chiefdom and part of Bashali were killed by local militias still active in several villages of Masisi territory. It is in North Kivu province, eastern DRC. Shebatsi Kakadju of the dynamics of the citizen structures of Masisi, affirms that these rebel groups which are under the responsibility of the Congolese government do not stop killing peaceful populations without reason. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

This civil society activist from Masisi indicates that it is enough to just have a little inconvenience with a rebel “there you find death without any trial. The most affected by these acts are the groups and villages of Bahunde” M.Kakadju suggests.

Residents of the territory of Masisi accuse the so-called reservist militiamen of the FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) of “committing abuses” in several areas of the North Kivu province.

Attackers stand in for lawmakers

The militias, considered by Congolese authorities as “self-defense groups” have also introduced a community work law.

In Ngungu, for example, in Ufamandu groupment, assailants charge 50,000 Congolese francs to each person who does not participate in this work.

The local population considers this to be some kind of racketeering.

Residents ask military authorities to relocate these militias camp to military cantonment base or to non residential areas.

“They constitute a danger for the population”, they say.

“I am not comfortable living with these rebels here. Our government must relocate them,” insists Jean Damascene Harerimana, a resident of Masisi.

“The authorities must build cantonment centers where reservist rebels will be directed because we cannot live with people who kill us like flies,” Desanges Kubwimana, another resident of Masisi revealed.

On April 19, the Congolese government put in place a law creating a group of reservists who can help the government force “fight the M23 rebels” who until now occupy a large part of the territories of Masisi, Rutshuru and Nyiragongo in North Kivu.

Since then, the former Tutsi rebellion, which took up arms again at the end of 2021, accusing the Congolese government of not having respected its commitments on the reintegration of its fighters, has continued to accuse the militias of “killing innocent civilians”, in the areas “that we ceded to the EAC regional force”.

The Congolese authorities reject these allegations and accuse the M23 of continuing to attack the regular army and kill young people whom it uses in particular to transport ammunition and food.