Rebels, armies attack people displaced in DRC, says HRW

Human Rights Watch reports Rwandan-backed rebels shelling civilian areas in eastern DRC, causing humanitarian disaster and war crimes.

Rwandan-backed M23 rebels and the Rwandan army have indiscriminately shelled densely populated areas of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including refugee camps, since January, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday (September 26, 2024).

It said the DRC Army and its allies, which are fighting M23 and its Rwandan military backers, had increased the danger to civilians by opening fire inside refugee camps and assaulting civilians.

Both sides had “killed and raped camp residents, interfered with aid delivery and committed other abuses”, the rights group said, noting that many of the victims were women and children.

It stressed that the laws of war “prohibit deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects”, adding: “A state that knowingly provides weapons to abusive armed groups may be complicit in war crimes.”

Since launching an offensive in late 2021, M23, a largely Tutsi militia, has seized large swathes of territory in the eastern DRC — a mineral-rich region housing a string of rival rebel groups that has been plagued by internal and cross-border violence for the past three decades.

The resurgence of M23 has triggered a humanitarian disaster, particularly in the eastern province of North Kivu.

“The Rwandan army and the M23 have indiscriminately shelled displacement camps ,” the HRW office in Kenya said.