North Kivu : the M23 has once again recovered Kishishe

M23 rebels have once again seized Kishishe, a village located in the North Kivu province in eastern DRC. A year ago, the Congolese authorities accused the rebellion of having killed around a hundred civilians in this village, which the M23 leadership has always denied. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

This village has received several displaced people from different neighboring localities over the past five days, according to our sources.

The locality of Kishishe was recaptured by the M23 rebels after intense clashes between them and the Congolese army and local militias since the morning of Tuesday, November 14, 2023.

“Now, it is the M23 rebels who are occupying Kishishe. The fighting has taken place since the morning hours and that scared us”, a resident of Kishishe, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told SOS Médias Burundi.

Fear sets in

Civilian populations that fled Kishishe “fear that the same situation will happen again”, the inhabitants emptied the area, heading towards the villages of Kirima and Kibirizi.

“We don’t want this to happen again to us. We are afraid to stay in the village with the M23 because the massacres of more than 130 civilians carried out by the M23 in November last year have destabilized our mentality”, adds the resident who testified to our editorial staff.

The civil society of the Bambo groupment in Rutshuru territory, for its part, asks the Congolese government to “activate all mechanisms aimed at restoring state authority in all localities of the Bwito chiefdom which remain under control of rebels.

The territorial coordination of the youth of Rutshuru, for its part, requires the start of large-scale military operations to secure the population of Bambo and Rutshuru, in general.

Denial

The M23 has always denied “attacking civilians”. He rejects these allegations aimed at “tarnishing his image and his good relationship with the civilian populations of the areas under his control”.

“Our movement rejects the unfounded allegations made against it and denounces this manipulation of the populations to create the chaos so desired by the Kinshasa government and its coalition”, the M23 leadership announced in a statement in the freshness of the facts.

The M23 is a former Tutsi rebellion which took up arms again at the end of 2021, accusing the Congolese authorities of not having respected their commitments on the reintegration of its fighters.

Since mid-June 2022, it has recovered several localities in North Kivu including Bunagana, the border city with Uganda. It accuses the Congolese army and its allies of violating the ceasefire agreement and killing civilians, with authorities in the vast central African country continuing to level the same allegations against the rebellion.