GOMA – Congolese authorities have accused Rwanda’s army and the M23 rebel group it backs of murdering dozens, kidnapping thousands more and committing rape, torture and looting in the war-torn country’s east.
The alleged crimes were committed between May 10 and 13 against civilians accused by the rebels of belonging to the Congolese army and its allied militias, Congo’s interior ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
“The toll includes 107 murders, more than 4,000 men and boys abducted and forcibly loaded onto trucks to an unknown destination, hundreds of cases of summary executions, rape, torture, looting, restrictions on freedom of movement, as well as incursions into health facilities,” the statement read.
The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify the reports. Spokespersons for Rwanda’s military and the M23 rebels did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The decades-long conflict in eastern Congo escalated in January, when the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seized the strategic city of Goma, followed by the takeover of the city of Bukavu in February. The fighting has killed some 3,000 people and raised fears of a wider regional war.
Congo’s accusation comes days after M23 presented hundreds of captured men at a stadium in Goma. The group said the captives were Congolese army or members of its allied militias whom Congo armed to foment conflict in order to blame it on M23.
M23 rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the west.
The fighting in Congo is linked to Rwanda’s decadeslong ethnic conflict. M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda.
Many Hutus fled to Congo after the genocide and founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda militia group. Rwanda says the militia group is “fully integrated” into the Congolese military, which denies it.
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Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Jean-Yves Kamale contributed from Kinshasa, Congo.
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