One million civilians flee east DR Congo in surging attacks, IOM says

"Across the country, over 26 million people need humanitarian aid from a population of around 100 million," the IOM said. Read more.

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Dated Sunday 18 June 2023 - full copy:

One million civilians flee east DR Congo in surging attacks, IOM says

People displaced by war between M23 rebels and DRC army war flee towards the city of Goma in North Kivu Province on November 15, 2022. PHOTO | ALEXIS HUGUET | AFP

Almost one million people have fled their homes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo so far this year, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday.

"A surge in attacks on civilians by non-state armed groups has newly displaced close to one million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January," the IOM said in a statement.

"An estimated 6.1 million people are internally displaced in the DRC, a 17 percent increase from October 2022," it added.

"As the conflict intensifies, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, and millions are facing acute food insecurity as well as other critical needs," the UN agency said.

"Since the beginning of the year armed attacks against civilians in the eastern Kivu and Ituri regions have resulted in loss of life, massive population displacements and growing instability," the organisation stressed.

"Across the country, over 26 million people need humanitarian aid from a population of around 100 million," the IOM said.

In the early hours of Monday, at least 46 people, half of them children, were killed in a militia attack on a camp for displaced people in Ituri province, security analysts and a local community leader said.

That attack was blamed on the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (Codeco) militia, which claims to protect the Lendu community from rival ethnic group, the Hema.

"This tragedy also resulted in the renewed displacement of over 7,800 people from the site, destruction of shelter and personal belongings," the IOM said.

"IOM condemns this heinous violation of international humanitarian law and recalls that attacks against civilians may constitute war crimes," it added.

On Thursday the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced it will examine allegations of war crimes by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east, after Kinshasa made a new formal referral to the tribunal.

Kinshasa has accused the M23 rebel group of attacks in the DRC's mineral-rich North Kivu, and says Rwanda is backing the Tutsi-led militia. Kigali denies any involvement in the violence.

Armed groups have plagued much of the eastern DRC for three decades, a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s.

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DR Congo war crimes trial begins - Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui have pleaded not guilty

According to the following report, interethnic violence in DR Congo has claimed the lives of 60,000 people since 1999, NGOs say.

From Aljazeera.net (Agencies), Wednesday, November 25, 2009:
DR Congo war crimes trial begins

Two Congolese men accused of directing an attack on a village, during which at least 200 people were killed, women raped and child soldiers allegedly recruited, have gone on trial in The Hague.

Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui appeared at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday, facing charges of seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The men, who pleaded not guilty, stand accused over an attack by their forces on the village of Bogoro in Democratic Republic of Congo's northeastern Ituri region in February 2003.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court's chief prosecutor, said the pair were "responsible for some of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community".

"They used children as soldiers, they killed more than 200 civilians in a few hours, they raped women; girls and the elderly, they looted the entire village and they transformed women into sex slaves," he said.

"Some were shot dead in their sleep, some cut up by machetes to save bullets. Others were burned alive after their houses were set on fire by the attackers."

'Killing without distinction'

Katanga, 31, an ethnic Ngiti, is said to have commanded the Patriotic Resistance Force (FRPI), while Ngudjolo, 39, a Lendu, is accused of being the former leader of the National Integrationist Front (FNI).

The prosecution say more than 1,000 fighters from both groups, including child soldiers, entered Bogoro in the early hours of February 24, six years ago.
"The plan was to wipe out Bogoro. They killed without distinction," Moreno-Ocampo said.

Until the attack, Bogoro had been controlled by rival Thomas Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), blocking FRPI and FNI fighters and camps from the road to the key city of Bunia.

Lubanga's own war crimes trial, the ICC's first, started in January.

Defence lawyers disputed whether Katanga or Ngudjolo were actually the commanders of the groups at the time of the attack and suggested both the governments' of Uganda and DR Congo had much to gain from the violence.

'Clear conscience'

David Hooper, Katanga's lawyer, said that his client's role during the conflict "was merely to defend his own people", accusing Uganda of fuelling the violence through its "plunder" of the natural resources.

"The defence disputes that Germain Katanga ... planned the attack or that he participated in it," Hooper said.

Jean-Pierre Kilenda, the defence counsel for Ngudjolo, said his client had a "clear conscience" and "was never involved personally or through intermediaries in the attack on Bogoro".

Non-governmental bodies say that inter-ethnic and militia violence in Ituri, largely over control of the area's gold mines, has claimed 60,000 lives since 1999.

Katanga was handed over to the ICC by the Democratic Republic of Congo government in October 2007, while Ngudjolo was arrested and transferred to The Hague in February 2008.

The two defence teams will give their opening statements later on Tuesday.

Quote of the Day
"The plan was to wipe out Bogoro. They killed without distinction" -Luis Moreno-Ocampo, ICC chief prosecutor