Keep the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ” on today’s agenda “, this is the mission assigned to himself by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, during a press conference in Geneva on Friday 9 December. The manager said “really horrified” by the massacre of civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he plans to visit next year.
At least 131 civilians, including 17 women and 12 children, were arbitrarily executed by shooting or stabbing in late November in two villages in eastern DRC, according to a preliminary UN investigation released Thursday. who accuses the M23 rebellion.
The Kinshasa authorities had mentioned Monday a death toll of around 300 in the village of Kishishe, in the province of North Kivu.
There are “a real need to put an end to these fights which are taking place in different parts of the country, in particular in North Kivu. It’s always the civilians who suffer.”said Mr. Türk, in Geneva.
More generally, the Austrian, who took over as head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in mid-October, said “deeply concerned about the situation, especially with regard to the exercise of democratic freedoms in the country”.
The troubled role of Rwanda
In a statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemned” the slaughter and “urged the M23 and all other armed groups to immediately cease hostilities and disarm unconditionally”.
The M23 is a former predominantly Tutsi rebellion that took up arms late last year and conquered large swaths of territory north of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.
According to Congolese authorities, UN experts and American diplomacy, the M23 is supported by Rwanda. But Kigali contests, accusing in return Kinshasa of collusion with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu movement formed by certain perpetrators of the Tutsi genocide in 1994 in Rwanda.