The sound of gunshots pierced through thunder as a column of ragtag fighters patrolled the town of Sake in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, dressed in a mix of civilian and military clothes, lugging assault rifles and brand new grenade launchers.

Among the group were fighters from a militia responsible for grave human rights abuses as well as dozens of minors, standing on the frontline of an increasingly tumultuous and deadly conflict, wearing rubber boots that were too big for their feet.

“Suffering is what drives us… we are here to protect our people,” said Gilbert, a commander of the group, which is called the Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), while flanked by a dozen young ‘bodyguards’.

For the past year, the Congolese army has been supporting several militias like the APCLS, using them as proxies to combat the M23 rebel group, which has seized swathes of territory in the east of the country with the backing of thousands of Rwandan troops.

The militias, collectively known as Wazalendo (‘patriots’ in Kiswahili), are being used because of poor motivation and dysfunction within the ranks of DRC’s army, which has seen dozens of soldiers and officers prosecuted for deserting the battlefield.

Yet the Wazalendo groups – some of which have previously fought each-other – are committing serious human rights abuses and bringing large numbers of child soldiers to the frontlines, thwarting long-running efforts to prevent their recruitment.

UN experts say the militias are using the Wazalendo banner to legitimise their existence and criminal activities, expanding territory in some cases and taxing and exploiting civilians in others.

Weapons transfers from the army to the militias have undermined prior calls by the government for armed groups to demobilise and are planting the seeds of future conflicts by further militarising the region, according to Congolese analysts.

DRC’s anti-M23 campaign, which includes military alliances with southern African troops, Burundian soldiers, and private security contractors has proved ineffective against the rebels that began their latest insurgency at the end of 2021.

Increasing Rwandan support has allowed the M23 to massively expand its footprint this year, overshadowing other insurgencies in the east and raising the risk of a major regional conflagration between Rwanda and DRC and its allies.

The combat has uprooted 1.7 million people, and the use of increasingly heavy and sophisticated weapons has led to a surge in casualties, many of them Wazalendo fighters and child soldiers.

“I was in hospital for three months and I didn’t receive a single visit – neither from the authorities, nor from our commanders,” said Jaffar Abubakar, a 27-year-old father of two, who joined a Wazalendo-affiliated militia around a year ago.

Abubakar said he had been shot through his arm, legs and stomach while patrolling around Sake. Jaffar walked with a limp, his right hand was twisted unnaturally, and he had a colostomy bag hanging under his t-shirt.

The Wazalendo armed groups came together in mid-2022, vowing to put aside their differences to fight a common enemy in the M23, which many of them see as a foreign imposition.

The M23 is led by Congolese Tutsi who say they are fighting because the government failed to implement a 2013 peace accord with the group. But they belong to a long line of Congolese rebel movements supported by neighbouring Rwanda.

Rwanda sees eastern DRC as its backyard and wants to maintain political and economic influence there. It also worries about the presence of the FDLR, a militia founded by exiled Rwandan Hutus who were behind the 1994 genocide against Tutsis.

Selected Wazalendo militias were chosen by the government to be part of a volunteer defence group last year, and have since received cash, food, ammunition and arms from the army, which also coordinates their activities.

“We couldn’t let them be like sheep without a shepherd,” said Peter Cirimwami, the military governor of North Kivu, the province where the M23 is most active. “We must speak together within the resistance movement, and that needs to be coordinated.”

Around a dozen Wazalendo fighters interviewed by The New Humanitarian over recent months in Sake and elsewhere offered different reasons for wanting to join the army’s anti-M23 operations.

Héritier Ndagendange, the spokesperson for the APCLS, which recruits from the local Hunde community and is led by Janvier Karairi, who was placed under European Union sanctions last year, said his group joined to “fight the foreign invaders”.

“Without our resistance, the enemy would have already taken Sake, but we won’t give up,” Ndagendange says. “There are thousands of us; we are an army.”

Another APCLS fighter said he was motivated by financial reasons. “For me, it’s a job. We were short of money,” said the young man, who had a scarf tied around his forehead, an automatic rifle in his hand, and an ammunition belt over his shoulder.

Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has praised the Wazalendo groups for defending their communities. Like Karairi, however, several Wazalendo leaders are under international sanctions, and Congolese authorities have even issued arrest warrants in the past for some of them.

On a recent visit to Sake, which is on the frontline of the conflict, we encountered fighters with blue armbands showing affiliation to Nyatura, a Hutu militia accused of kidnappings, sexual violence and summary executions.

The New Humanitarian also met a woman who said she was part of the FDLR, the rebel group founded by exiled Rwandan Hutu genocidaires, which has a long history of committing massacres and other abuses in DRC.

In a recent media interview Tshisekedi admitted that Wazalendo groups have not undergone training and may be committing atrocities. “They are in such a state of mind that they no longer obey anything, including ourselves,” Tshisekedi said.

By knowingly collaborating with militias that are committing abuses, Congolese army commanders could be held accountable under international law and sanctioned, said a well-placed UN source in DRC, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

One of the biggest concerns around the Wazalendo is their massive use of child soldiers, which has set back efforts to prevent their recruitment by many years, according to UN officials, civil society groups, and local and international NGOs.

“Our country is being invaded. Anyone who can carry a weapon feels that they must help the fight. This is a situation where even a 12-year-old child might feel that he needs to protect his family and his land.”

Some of the children may have been forcibly recruited by Wazalendo groups, although many are thought to have joined from displacement camps, where a lack of education and jobs makes joining an armed group seem like an attractive opportunity to make money.

Isaac Kabuyire, a former child soldier who now works in a centre for demobilised children, said the recruits will be “suffering” and are likely to be affected for the rest of their lives.

However, Kabuyire, who was recruited when he was 13, said he is not surprised that the current war has produced a new generation of what locals call kadogos, which means “little ones” in Kiswahili.

“Our country is being invaded. Anyone who can carry a weapon feels that they must help the fight,” Kabuyire said. “This is a situation where even a 12-year-old child might feel that he needs to protect his family and his land.”

Francine Kongolo, a public relations officer in DRC for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said surgery teams in North Kivu and South Kivu have seen an increase in the number of children injured by weapons over recent months.

Some of the casualties are civilians, while others are child soldiers, their bodies mutilated by bullets or shells that have exploded in front of them, according to doctors and medical staff.

• The New Humanitarian report