On Thursday, the Congolese government denounced the continuation of the “macabre project of ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by Rwanda, which occupies large swathes of its territory in the provinces of North and South Kivu, under cover of the M23 rebels. Kinshasa is convinced that Kigali has decided to massacre the populations found in the zones under occupation in order to install “Rwandan populations” with a “parallel administration”.
The Interior Ministry communiqué also denounced the “commission of acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the zones under their occupation”. In particular, the Congolese executive cited the incursion, on February 28, March 3 and 4, 2025, of the Rwandan army and its M23-AFC auxiliaries into the Goma hospitals (Heal Africa, CBCA Ndosho and CBCA Virunga). While the rebels claim to have carried out these raids to track down FARDC and Wazalendo soldiers hiding in these hospitals, Kinshasa sees them as acts of abduction of patients and nurses, including hospitalized soldiers who were, according to the communiqué, “summarily executed in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.
At the same time, Kinshasa deplores the process of “forced recruitment” of young people, including minors and schoolchildren, into the ranks of the M23. According to information reported by Minister Shabani, the rebels have forced every household in occupied areas “to enroll three out of five children for military training”.
Infos.cd
