Charities report ‘apocalyptic’ violence in eastern DR Congo

Since January, the M23 rebels have captured Goma, the largest city in the region and the capital of North Kivu province, and the capital of neighbouring South Kivu province Bukavu.

The discovery of 70 bodies in an abandoned Church reveals the severity of the violence afflicting the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, observers have said.

According to Genocide Watch, militants believed to be members of the Allied Democratic Forces – a group linked to the Islamic State – rounded up the 70 Christians on 13 February took them to a church and killed all of them.

A source told Aid to the Church in Need that the corpses found in the Evangelical church in Kasanga, near Maiba, included women, children and elderly people. 

“Many of them had been bound and some beheaded,” the source said. “It is likely that these victims were unable to resist or endure the forced march, because when the rebels take hostages, they make them travel with them, either as reinforcements for their group or as forced labour for the war effort.”

The charity Open Doors cited local sources saying that the violence began around 4am that morning, when the militants captured and tied up 20 Christians in Maiba.

The rest of the village tried to gather together for safety, but by the time they met the whole village had been surrounded and 50 more were taken captive. The militants took all 70 captives to a Protestant church in Kasanga, where they were held and then killed with machetes and hammers.

The director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute of the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference described the atrocity as “apocalyptic”.

“I think the 70 bodies that were beheaded and dumped in a church in the DRC perfectly shows the level of violence in the country. It is completely out of control and, you know, apocalyptic,” Johan Viljoen told The Tablet.

Open Doors also condemned what it called “this heinous act of violence against civilians”.

Viljoen said the pathway to peace would require that “all foreign forces must disengage from Congo, and that includes Rwanda and everyone else … and the people who live in the eastern DRC must determine their own future”.

Decades of violence in eastern DRC have caused thousands of deaths and displaced millions, but since January renewed incursions by the Rwanda-backed rebel group the M23 Movement have killed a further 7,000 people, according to the Congolese Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka.

Addressing the UN’s human rights council in Geneva on Monday, she said over 450,000 more people have been left without shelter after the destruction of 90 camps sheltering people who had already been displaced.

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Since January, the M23 has captured Goma, the largest city in the region and the capital of North Kivu province, and the capital of neighbouring South Kivu province Bukavu.

In Uvira, south of Bukavu, a bishop and two priests “narrowly escaped death” when the bishops’ residence was raided by three members of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC).

The soldiers raided the residence of Bishop Sébastien Joseph Muyengo Mulombe of Uvira on 20 February, according to a statement issued by the diocese. The statement said that they robbed the clergy of money, mobile phones and other belongings.

In Bukavu, which fell to the M23 without resistance on 15 February, a Church source told Agenzia Fides people felt “gratitude after having escaped danger”, with limited violence in the city. Reports said the city’s prison was set on fire during looting by FARDC troops as they fled the city, but the prison chaplain and a group of nuns rescued the building from complete destruction.

However, reports also circulated this week of an explosion in the city during a rally on 27 February organised by the newly-installed city authorities, which killed several people. Church sources told Fides that various explanations claimed it was the work of a suicide bomber, of M23 troops or of the Kinshasa government.

Historic tensions between President Felix Tshisekedi’s government and the country’s bishops threatened to revive as Church leaders attempted to facilitate talks between the combatants.

On 26 February, the secretary general of the Congolese bishops’ conference (CENCO) Mgr Donatien Nshole was detained for an hour at Lubumbashi International Airport on his return from a meeting of the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa (ACEAC) in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam to discuss the bishops’ peace efforts.

A statement signed by CENCO’s president, Archbishop Fulgence Muteba of Lubumbashi, condemned “this serious attempt to violate the freedom of movement of a prelate of this rank”.

It said that “this type of provocation is not conducive to the peaceful pursuit of peace and social cohesion” and reaffirmed CENCO’s “commitment and determination to continue the initiative of the Social Pact for Peace and Coexistence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes Region”, the peace initiative it has developed with the Church of Christ in Congo, the regions largest Protestant Church.

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