At least 140 civilians were killed in eastern Congo in July, reportedly by Rwanda-backed rebels, in what a human rights organization has described as “summary executions.”
Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday that 141 people, mostly Hutus, were dead or missing following attacks in farming communities near Virunga National Park in North Kivu province. The organization cited local experts and eyewitness accounts in its findings.
The killings appear to be part of a campaign by the M23 rebel group, the most prominent of over 100 armed factions vying for control in eastern Congo, targeting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a predominantly Hutu armed group.
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“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.
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The report highlighted the region’s long-standing tensions, nearly two million Hutus fled Rwanda for Congo following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 Tutsi, moderate Hutus, and others were killed. Rwandan authorities accused the refugees of participating in the genocide, alleging protection by the Congolese army.
Witnesses told HRW that M23 soldiers, often accompanied by Rwandan troops identified by their accents, instructed villagers to “immediately bury the bodies in the fields or leave them unburied, preventing families from organizing funerals.”
One survivor recounted being forced, with a group of roughly 70 people, to a riverbank near the town of Kafuru. Soldiers then opened fire, killing 47 individuals, including children, who were later identified.
M23 military spokesperson Willy Ngoma, according to The Associated Press, dismissed the report as “military propaganda.”
The HRW report also cited U.N. and military sources suggesting the Rwandan military and Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) were involved in the operations. The Rwandan government has not commented.
The killings threaten to heighten tensions in Congo’s mineral-rich east, where various actors have been seeking a permanent ceasefire since clashes between M23 and Congolese forces intensified in January. The U.N. has described the region as facing “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”
M23 was previously accused of extrajudicial killings during its capture of major eastern cities in May.
