DAKAR, Senegal, 27 Dec: The accounts are haunting. Abductions, torture, rapes. Scores of civilians including women and children have been killed by the M23 rebels in eastern Congo, according to a U.N. report
\nIn addition, the M23 rebels have forced children to be soldiers, according to the report by a panel of U.N. experts. The 21-page report based on interviews with more than 230 sources and visits to Rutshuru area of Congo\u2019s North Kivu province where the M23 have seized territory, is expected to be published this week.
\nConflict has been simmering in eastern Congo for decades where more than 120 armed groups are fighting in the region, most for land and control of mines with valuable minerals, while some groups are trying to protect their communities.
\nThe already volatile situation significantly deteriorated this year when the M23 resurfaced after being largely dormant for nearly a decade.
\nThe M23 first rose to prominence 10 years ago when its fighters seized Goma, the largest city in Congo\u2019s east, which sits on the border with Rwanda. The group derives its name from a peace agreement signed on March 23, 2009 which called for the rebels to be integrated into the Congo army. The M23 accuse the government of not implementing the accord.
\nIn late 2021 the reactivated M23 began killing civilians and capturing swaths of territory. M23 fighters raped and harassed women trying to farm family fields in areas controlled by the rebels, according to the report. The rebels accused civilians of spying for the Congolese army, said the report. They were often incarcerated and some were beaten to death, it said.
\nNot only are populations living under M23 subject to abuse but they are forced to pay taxes, said the panel. At the Bunagana border crossing with Uganda, the rebels earned an average of $27,000 a month making people carrying goods pay as they entered and left the country, said the UN. Two locals living under M23 who did not want to be named for fear of their safety, told The Associated Press they\u2019d been forced to bring the rebels bags of beans, pay $5 if they wanted to access their farms and take backroads if they want to leave the village for fear of reprisal.
\nThe M23 did not respond to questions about the allegations, but has previously dismissed it as propaganda.
\nThe violence by the rebels is part of an overall worsening of the crisis in eastern Congo, with fighting by armed groups intensifying and expanding in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces, said the report.
\n\u201cThe security and humanitarian situation in North Kivu and Ituri Provinces significantly deteriorated, despite the continuous enforcement of a state of siege over the past 18 months,\u201d and despite military operations by Congo\u2019s armed forces, Uganda\u2019s military and the U.N. mission in Congo, said the report.
\nAdding to the difficult situation in eastern Congo, attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces \u2014 believed to be linked with the Islamic State group \u2014 are increasing, said the report. A nearly year-long joint operation by Uganda and Congo\u2019s armies \u201chas not yet yielded the expected results of defeating or substantially weakening the ADF,\u201d it said. Since April ADF attacks have killed at least 370 civilians and abducted several hundred more, including a significant number of children, it said. The group also extended its area of operations to Goma and into the neighboring Ituri province.
\nThe fighting is exacerbating eastern Congo\u2019s dire humanitarian crisis. Almost 6 million people are internally displaced in Congo with more than 450,000 displaced in North Kivu province since clashes escalated in February. Hundreds of thousands are facing extreme food insecurity and disease is spreading, say aid groups. Cholera cases are spiking in Nyiragongo, a region hosting many of the displaced people in North Kivu, with more than 970 cases of the disease discovered in recent weeks, said Save The Children.
\nEfforts to stem the violence have yielded little results.
\nA new regional force deployed to eastern Congo is facing pushback from local residents who say they don\u2019t want more armed groups in the area. Tensions are also rising with Congo\u2019s neighbor Rwanda, which it accuses of supporting the M23 rebels, findings backed by the UN.
\nEarlier this week the M23 said it was retreating from Kibumba, a town near Goma which it held for several weeks, as part of an agreement made last month at a summit in Angola, said Lawrence Kanyuka the M23’s political spokesman in a statement. However, residents from Kibumba said the rebels are still there and are still attacking civilians.
\n\u201cMy neighbor was whipped because he refused to let M23 slaughter his goat,\u201d said Faustin Kamete a Kibumba resident. \u201cThey lied to the international community with their withdrawal,\u201d he said. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAKAR, Senegal, 27 Dec: The accounts are haunting. Abductions, torture, rapes. Scores of civilians including women and children have been killed by the M23 rebels in eastern Congo, according to a U.N. report In addition, the M23 rebels have forced children to be soldiers, according to the report by a panel of U.N. experts. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}