Rwanda : Congolese Tutsi refugees demonstrate against a probable genocide targeting them in the DRC

It is refugees from the Kiziba and Nkamira camps located respectively in the Karongi and Rubavu districts of the Western Province who demonstrated on Monday. They denounce a “genocide” committed against their compatriots from the Tutsi, Banyamulenge, Hema tribes in the east of the DRC, their native land. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

They had signs on which we could read: “the lives of the Tutsis, the Banyamulenge and the Hema matter more, where are these human rights activists and international organizations in the face of this genocide? How can South Africa support Apartheid in Congo? Burundi, Tanzania and Malawi, stop supporting the DRC in its genocidal plan,…”.

At the Kiziba camp in the Karongi district in western Rwanda, these Congolese refugees left the camp and toured the surrounding villages as noted by a reporter from Kigali Today, a Rwandan magazine.

“We want to denounce this genocide committed against our families. We were lucky enough to go into exile, but every day we lose the members of our communities who remained in the country in the provinces of South Kivu and North Kivu as well as in Ituri. We want to draw the attention of the international community to despicable crimes that are being committed in full view of everyone,” declared one of their leaders, in a black T-shirt with anti-Tshisekedi slogans.

Among these refugees, there are those who have just spent more than 30 years in Rwanda. “It is a shame to see absolute silence during three decades of targeted killings under the complacent eye of the United Nations with their so-called mission in Congo (MONUSCO),” they lamented.

At the Nkamira camp, a transit center set up in the Rubavu district, bordering the DRC, some of the demonstrators have not yet forgotten the ordeal they very recently endured.

“I fled last year with my three children when my husband had just been killed in Masisi. We are accused of supporting the M23. In our village, we lost around ten men, brutally killed by the Wazalendo. So, we consider it a genocide because we are being hunted for the simple fact that we are Tutsis,” a young woman told our colleagues at Kigali Today.

More than 15,000 new Congolese refugees have passed through this transit camp since the end of 2022, according to UNHCR figures.

According to information given by their leaders, such so-called peaceful demonstrations which began on March 4 will continue until March 11, 2024 and will take place in different refugee camps in Rwanda, such as Mahama in the district of Kirehe, Nyabiheke in the Gatsibo district as well as Kigeme and Mugombwa in Nyamagabe district.

Last June, such demonstrations had taken place in these same refugee camps.

At the time, Congolese refugees in Rwanda even took their case to various embassies in the country, calling on the international community to understand their plight and take action in the face of the atrocities being committed against their compatriots.

Rwanda is home to more than 86,000 Congolese refugees, mainly from the east of the vast Central African country.