UN accused of abetting forced transfers of refugees from M23-held areas in Congo to Rwanda
UNHCR’s role in the deportations has raised major concerns, as the agency’s mandate allows it to repatriate refugees only when they fully consent to return to their countries of origin. At the transit centre in Goma, UNHCR staff sought to determine nationalities, but people were not informed that they had a choice about leaving, according to the five affected people.
DRC peace lie: What attracts Washington, Doha and other powers is strategic minerals, not tears of displaced families
The Washington deal committed DRC’s army to neutralise the FDLR – which is referenced far more in the deal than the M23 – and Rwanda to end what the text terms “defensive measures”, a euphemism Kigali uses for its deployments.
Killed and displaced with guns, residents of eastern Congo face another crisis: Land grabs and assassinations by M23 rebels in Rutshuru
It is widely believed that Rwanda’s current support for the M23 is driven by geopolitical and economic interests, although the Congolese army has given it a pretext by allying with various militias, including the FDLR, to strengthen its ranks against the rebels.
Inside Congo’s killing fields, sickly and exploited artisanal miners slave away for world’s indifferent tech economies
Josaphat Musamba, a Congolese researcher and PhD student at Ghent University in Belgium, said suppressing the militia would be a tall order for the DRC’s military, which is no longer present in large swathes of M23-controlled territory.
New confidential report by UN experts accuses Rwanda of commanding and controlling M23 rebels
Rwanda has long denied helping M23 and says its forces are acting in self-defence against Congo’s army and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
‘We’re getting for US a lot of mineral rights from the Congo’, Trump makes American interests clear in DRC, Rwanda peace deal
Rwanda has sent at least 7,000 soldiers over the border, according to analysts and diplomats, in support of the M23 rebels, who seized eastern Congo’s two largest cities and lucrative mining areas in a lightning advance earlier this year.
