UN ‘alarmed’ by deaths during protest against its DRC peacekeeping force
Human rights groups accuse military of shooting civilians during unrest that left dozens of people dead
The UN said it was “extremely alarmed” after dozens of people were killed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo this week in protests against a longstanding peacekeeping mission in a region besieged by rebel groups.
Members of a religious group had gathered in the city of Goma to demonstrate against the UN peacekeeping mission known as Monusco and the East African Community organisation over escalating violence.
Human rights groups accused the DRC’s military of shooting civilians during Wednesday’s unrest in which at least 43 people were killed, including a policeman, and 56 injured.
Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, on Friday said: “People have a right to express themselves freely and to assemble peacefully, even if in protest at the United Nations.” He said the UN had received information indicating that the death toll may be higher.
Monusco peacekeepers have been in the country since 1999, but have faced criticism over their failure to stop rebel violence, particularly the resurgence of the M23 armed group, which has been terrorising parts of the region.
Last year, amid claims that the UN had failed to protect civilians, anti-Monusco protests led to the deaths of several people, including peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the Congolese government said 158 people had been arrested and that a military investigation into the bloodshed had been opened.
The victims were reportedly killed in Goma, the capital of the province of North Kivu, after the army confronted a “mystic-religious sect”, called Natural Judaic and Messianic Faith Towards the Nations, which had gathered to protest.
Officials in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, said the group “carried out actions which undermined public order, and which caused the death by stoning of a police officer,” leading to an intervention by the security forces.
In a statement on Thursday Monusco said the Congolese security forces had “in accordance with their primary responsibility for security in the country,” tried to prevent a demonstration that was expected to turn violent. Bintou Keita, head of Monusco, said she deeply regretted “the banned demonstration has caused the death of civilians, police and members of the Congolese armed forces”.
“Congolese military forces appear to have fired into a crowd to prevent a demonstration, an extremely callous as well as unlawful way to enforce a ban,” said Thomas Fessy, senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch. “For two years, the military authorities have used the ‘state of siege’ — martial law — in North Kivu province to brutally crack down on fundamental liberties.”
Violence in the region has been escalating in recent years, especially since M23 rebels resurfaced with renewed strength after a hiatus of almost 10 years.
John Banyene, a civil society leader in Goma who has joined protests against the peacekeepers in the past, said. “There’s a dissatisfaction from the population with regard to Monusco, which has had a presence here for more than two decades, but now the security situation is only deteriorating.”
In 2021, the government of President Felix Tshisekedi declared “a state of siege” in eastern DRC, with military officers taking over from civilian administrators in areas where government troops are fighting more than 100 rebel groups vying for resources and territorial control.
The M23 — which Congolese officials, local people, the UN, US, and EU claim is backed by neighbouring Rwanda, something Rwanda’s government denies — resumed fighting in November 2021 and has since been waging a brutal offensive in eastern Congo. The group has been accused of mass killings and the rape of civilians. Almost 1mn people have been displaced by violence since the M23’s resurgence, the International Organization for Migration said in April.
The M23 on Friday released a statement condemning in “the strongest terms the brutal slaughtering of unarmed civilians”, claiming the death toll kept rising and it “provisionally stands at 97 dead, including women and children.”