Cibitoke : nearly a hundred cows stolen in the DRC escorted to Burundi by soldiers

For a week, dozens of cows have been arriving in Burundi from the DRC. Residents of Buganda district in Cibitoke province (northwest Burundi) where the cattle are transiting say that “it is Burundian soldiers who escort the cattle”. The district administrator of Buganda denies the information.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Cows arrive by the Rusizi River along the bottom of Kaburantwa hill, according to witnesses.

“Every day, Burundian soldiers arrive with at least 20 cows. They cross the Rusizi and arrive on the 6th and 7th streets of Kaburantwa. The soldiers arrive heavily armed as if they were at war. We don’t know why,” Buganda residents told SOS Médias Burundi.
Sources in the DRC speak of cows stolen by a Burundian contingent in South Kivu province (eastern DRC).

“Cows are targeted and stolen by Burundian soldiers based here. It happens every day. When we try to oppose it, they threaten to kill us. It’s strange. Instead of bringing us peace, they are the first to disrupt it,” our sources say.

For his part, the administrator of Buganda denied the facts, although they were reported by eyewitnesses. No military official in the region has yet spoken on the subject.

But other sources in Uvira in South Kivu think that the Burundian military are not the real looters.

“Certainly they have this deal to escort these animals but the real looters are Congolese and Burundian traders who collaborate with Burundian authorities especially”, assure our sources.

And they nsist : “before it was the cows of the Banyamulenge that were mainly targeted but now, even cows of other communities are concerned by this looting”. Our sources also say that the Imbonerakure (members of the youth league of the CNDD-FDD, the ruling party in Burundi) and local militiamen maintained by the Congolese government, remain heavily involved in the theft of cows in the Rusizi plain.

Burundi has two contingents on the Congolese territory.
One is based in South Kivu while the other operates in North Kivu. They are there in a bilateral framework between the Burundian and Congolese governments.

——

Men from a minority tribe keep their cows in an area threatened by armed groups and where the Burundian army is present in eastern Congo (SOS Médias Burundi)