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Rwanda-backed rebels killed at least 140 people in farming communities in eastern Congo in July, a human rights group said in a report Wednesday, describing the killings as “summary executions.”
Human Rights Watch said 141 people, predominantly Hutus, were feared dead or missing after the attacks near Virunga National Park in North Kivu province, citing local experts and witness accounts.
It said the killings appeared to be part of a military campaign by the M23 group, the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups fighting for control in eastern Congo, against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a mostly Hutu armed group.
Nearly 2 million Hutus from Rwanda fled to Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed 800,000 Tutsi, moderate Hutus and others. Rwandan authorities accused the Hutus who fled of participating in the genocide, alleging that the Congolese army protected them.
“The M23 armed group, which has Rwandan government backing, attacked over a dozen villages and farming areas in July and committed dozens of summary executions of primarily Hutu civilians,” said Clementine de Montjoye, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Witnesses said M23 soldiers, accompanied by Rwandan soldiers who were identified by their accents, told them to “immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from organizing funerals,” the report said.
One woman described being marched in a group to a riverbank near the town of Kafuru. The group of around 70 people was lined up before the soldiers began shooting at them. 47 people, including children, who were killed were identified, the report added.
Willy Ngoma, military spokesperson for M23, called the report “military propaganda.”
The report said the Rwandan military and the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) were involved in the M23 operations, citing U.N. and military sources and witness accounts. There was no immediate comment from the Rwandan government.
The reported killings could escalate tensions in Congo’s mineral-rich east where different partners have been racing to achieve a permanent ceasefire since fighting between the M23 and Congolese forces escalated in January.
The U.N. has called the conflict “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”
M23 was previously accused of extrajudicial killings during their seizure of major cities in the eastern part of the country in May.
