Goma: burial on government orders of more than forty bodies despite opposition from families and civil society

At least 40 bodies were buried on Monday September 18, 2023 on the orders of the governor of the North Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, despite fierce opposition from members of their families who demanded an independent investigation before the burial. On August 30, more than 50 people were killed by the Congolese army during a demonstration against MONUSCO (United Nations Mission in the DRC). INFO SOS Médias Burundi

In the process, citizen movements and pressure groups announced a march to pay tribute to all the people who lost their lives during the carnage of August 30. According to residents of Goma, the town hall banned the demonstration.

The governor of the North Kivu province ordered the burial on Monday despite opposition from the victims’ families who demanded certain prerequisites before any burial. They accuse the provincial authority of having refused any collaboration.

According to military sources, the Goma military court is still working to find the real perpetrators of these massacres of civilian population in the capital of the North Kivu province.

During his stay in the province, Peter Kazadi, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior took this opportunity to speak with families of the victims a few hours before the burial of the bodies.

“Of the 57 dead, there are around 40 whose families showed up to claim the bodies and others who didn’t ,” he said.

Members of the victims’ families strongly opposed this funeral organized by the government of the North Kivu province.

“I do not agree with our authorities who have just buried our loved ones without consulting us. This means that they want to remove traces which show how our brothers, sisters, parents were killed. We ask that those who are in the prison houses here in Goma be released and then proceed to a dignified burial,” a brother of one of the victims told SOS Médias Burundi.

Civil society believes the military authorities, in complicity with the central government in Kinshasa, used their power to flout the rights of the Congolese.

“Our government is really not serious. How can it bury a dead person without consulting their biological family? This is really violating the rights of the Congolese and we are asking the Congolese justice system if it is not complicit in this case, of once again, open serious investigations so that military governor Constant Ndima Kongba and the members of his government can respond fiercely for these barbaric acts,” said Denis Cicero, president of the Republican Civil Society of Congo in the city of Goma.

The carnage of August 30 claimed more than fifty civilians, a large number of whom were young members of a local mystical-religious sect.