Congo’s “forgotten” war becomes a fight for survival

The girl’s dress is bright and emerald green, and she carefully peels an orange, but little else is normal for this 14-year-old sitting in a hospital bed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“I was wounded in battle,” she said when asked about the bandages covering the stump of her right leg. “I joined the fight for my country. . . If I have the opportunity to return to the fight, I will do so to end the war against the M23.”

The girl, a minor whose name cannot be identified, is one of approximately 28,000 wazalendo (which means patriots in Swahili) who have enlisted in the militia group fighting alongside the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo around the city of Goma. They face a rebel group called M23 that is slowly encircling the provincial capital as part of a brutal and complex war that the outside world has largely ignored.

The fighting has engulfed, on the one hand, Congolese forces armed with Chinese-made drones, UN peacekeepers, troops from Burundi, Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania, and European security contractors, including former Foreign Legion fighters. French. The M23, on the other hand, has the backing of neighboring Rwanda, although Kigali has never acknowledged that its soldiers are on the ground.

The fighting has intensified in recent weeks, stoking panic and alarm in Goma, a city of 2 million inhabitants swelled by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of internal refugees, many of whom were then living in squalid camps.

“We are on a knife’s edge,” said a senior Western diplomat. “The Congolese should engage in talks with the M23 (while) the Rwandans say it is not their place to take the blame. It is catastrophic.”

The M23 – which Kinshasa, the UN, the US, the EU and the powerful Catholic Church say has the support of Rwanda – has fought its way to within 20 kilometers of Goma and has entrenched itself in the hills overlooking the city. European security contractors say the rebels are aided by sophisticated weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles and GPS-guided mortars fired by the Rwandan army.

“M23 and Kigali are joined at the hip,” said a senior foreign official involved in diplomatic attempts to end the fighting.

The rebel group, accused by the UN of sowing “terror” and forcibly recruiting children, controls almost all supply routes to Goma, capital of North Kivu province, which is now home to 2.7 million displaced people. .

“The security situation is worrying and unpredictable because Rwandans are advancing or strengthening their front line,” said Maj. Gen. Peter Cirimwami, acting military governor of the province.

Brigadier General Ronald Rwivanga, spokesman for the Rwanda Defense Forces, rejected the allegation. “This is an internal Congolese matter,” he said. “Why would Rwanda be involved?”

For now, the DRC government will not negotiate with the M23, dominated by Congolese Tutsi. Analysts estimate the group has 5,000 fighters, making it the top threat among the 120 armed groups operating in eastern DRC, a mineral-rich region beset by conflict for decades.

The M23 first emerged more than a decade ago in a rebellion also backed by Rwanda, Congelese officials say, and the group briefly occupied Goma in 2012. After a period in abeyance, it reemerged three years ago after accusing Kinshasa of ignore a previous peace agreement.

This war has its roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Hutus killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderates from their own ethnic group during 100 days of frenzied bloodshed. More than a million Hutus, including the defeated army, fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the following years, the Rwandans twice invaded eastern Congo, apparently to hunt down the genocidalwhich caused a series of conflicts that affected other countries, deposed the Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and generated countless armed groups in what became known as the “Africa world war.”

The fear now is that the spiral of violence risks erupting into a new and even more dangerous regional conflagration. “I just lost a man; it’s war,” said Gen. Ngowa Lwanda, commander of a wazalendo unity, he told the Financial Times in Mugunga, located not far from the front line, amid the roar of heavy artillery and gunfire.

Agnes Kanyere, a 40-year-old Congolese Hutu who survived previous wars and lives in the nearby Lushagala camp, said her husband and children were killed by M23 after the family fled their village. She was subsequently raped by unidentified armed men. “There have been many deaths,” she added.

Many blame Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagame, for the uprising. “Rwanda’s main interest (in the war) is to continue to have a say in this geopolitical battlefield,” said Onesphore Sematumba, an analyst at Goma-based Crisis Group. “This is a dispute for control of (an) area rich in economic influence.”

This view was supported by Ngowa, the pro-government general who as a young man fought for a different Kigali-backed militia. “The M23 and Rwanda agreed to reactivate this rebellion with the aim of taking the east of the country to exploit minerals for the benefit of Rwanda.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo said it was losing $1 billion annually in minerals diverted from its territory, which the UN said were “smuggled into Rwanda.” The M23 recently took control of the area around one of the world’s largest deposits of coltan, a vital component in smartphones and electric vehicles.

Rwanda denies stealing minerals and Kagame continues to enjoy close relations with countries including the UK following a deal to take in asylum seekers deported from Britain. Rwanda also makes a counter-accusation against the Democratic Republic of the Congo, claiming that Hutu fighters from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, who are “fully integrated” into the Congolese army, something Kinshasa denies, represent “a serious threat to security.” National of Rwanda.

Kagame also defended M23, saying at a recent commemoration of the Rwandan genocide that the group was fighting because Congolese Tutsis “have been denied their rights,” and at least 100,000 of them sought refuge in Rwanda after fleeing attacks. in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

What highlights the indiscriminate nature of the fighting is that Congolese Tutsis have found themselves in the crossfire. Esperance Mahoro, a mother of six who fled to one of Goma’s camps, said she faced discrimination because of her ethnicity, and some locals blamed her for her situation. “I am Tutsi and I am also suffering,” she said. “I want the M23 to stop and the war to end.”

President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo compared the pro-government wazalendo to the Ukrainians who resisted the Russian invasion and demanded Western sanctions against Rwanda. “The international community stood up and mobilized its support for Ukraine after the Russian aggression. We are also being attacked by Rwanda, but there are no sanctions,” Tshisekedi said.

But some of the wazalendo In turn, locals and humanitarian officials, including UN human rights chief Volker Türk, accuse them of human rights violations as they wreak havoc in Goma and surrounding countryside. Türk said on a visit to the city last month that he feared “what could happen to civilians if there was a hasty withdrawal” of the 13,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force that has been in the country for 25 years.

For those in Goma and the tent cities, where cholera is rampant, life has become a fight for survival. The sprawling Lushagala was a scene of squalor even before a recent mortar attack killed at least 18 people. Two children were also killed when a grenade exploded, while one of the wazalendo accused of murder was burned alive by vengeful residents in another incident.

Surgeons at a local hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross have treated babies injured by shrapnel. Sexual violence is widespread and the UN has recorded more than 4,000 cases a month since the start of the year. Women are often attacked while searching for food or firewood.

The United States blamed Rwanda and the M23 for the attack on the camp and said it was “gravely concerned” about the escalation of violence. Kagame aide Yolande Makolo dismissed the claim of involvement as “ridiculous” and “absurd”.

Myriam Favier, head of the ICRC in Goma, said the crisis in eastern Congo was not receiving the attention it deserved, focusing instead on the Middle East and Ukraine. “This conflict is practically forgotten. And yet it is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the human suffering it has created.”

Kanyere, the Congolese Hutu, feared an even worse fate if the rebels advanced on Goma. “The M23 kills everyone: Tutsis and Hutus,” he said, pointing to his positions just a few kilometers away. “If they come here, it will be horrible.”

Mapping and data visualization by Steven Bernard.