from JEAN KASSONGO in Kinshasa, DRC
DRC Bureau
KINSHASA, (CAJ News) – THE March 23 Movement (M23) has summarily executed 156 people in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since October 2023.
The figures supplied by the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office also indicate the rebel group sexually abused 30 women and 12 children.
Militants of the M23 also kidnapped 127 civilians, including forcibly conscripting them into combat, during the said period.
“These figures do not represent the full extent of abuse,” lamented Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
He was presenting at the 55th session of the Human Rights Council.
Summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial.
“Many of these serious human rights violations could amount to atrocity crimes, and the alleged perpetrators and their accomplices must be held to account.”
Türk reported that between October 2023 and mid-March 2024, the UN Joint Human Rights Office documented 2 110 human rights violations and abuses across the DRC.
Of these, 59 were committed by armed groups.
Nearly half of these violations and abuses took place in North Kivu province.
The armed conflict between the M23 and the Congolese army (FARDC) intensified before extending beyond Rutshuru to the territory of Masisi.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to the provincial capital of Goma and further north into South Kivu province.
According to humanitarian sources, this conflict has displaced more than 2,5 million people in North Kivu between February 2022 and January 2024.
Experts cite large-scale corruption, frantic race between multiple parties to gain control and exploit the country’s wealth of natural resources and ongoing violent land conflicts as fuelling insecurity in eastern DRC.
– CAJ News