I.1.5. Rurambo, in the chiefdom of Bafuliru in the territory of Uvira

The Banyamulenge villages in this area were completely burned by the Mai-Mai and Burundian rebels during the months of March and April 2021, and all the inhabitants forced to flee. These include the villages of: Kahundwe, Rwikubo, Kageregere, Marungu, Murambi I, Murambi II, Rukuka, Gitembe I, Gitembe II, Nyamarongwe/Bibangwa, Bijige/Bibangwa, Gahusi/Bibangwa, Nyabujeje/Bibangwa.

During these attacks, thirteen people were killed, including Mrs. Sophie Nyandorimana, Ndasimurwa Kazingo,  Mutuganyi  Kazingo,  Bisimwa,  Karume  Ndasunikwa,  Nyiramatereka  Anastasie,  Munyamahoro  Gasarazi,  Mudakuka  Rusomoka,  Kagufi  Ndwanyi,  Rudahirwa  Kabuti,  Nyagabano  Rusi,  Mporana  Sebadege,  Sebashora  Byinshi, and all the property, consisting of cows, sheep, goats and other basic necessities was looted by the assailants.

There have been no reports of intervention by regular army personnel in an attempt to protect the victims and their property during or after these attacks.

II.2. Some cases of the involvement of the regular army in the war of ethnic cleansing of the Banyamulenge.

1. Between May and October 2019, more than forty-six Banyamulenge villages in the sector of Itombwe were destroyed by the Mai-Mai militias and the Burundian rebels of Red-Tabara, while these villages were surrounded by six FARDC positions that did not dare to intervene to protect the victims from the Mai-Mai attacks, or deter the assailants from destroying the villages and looting the livestock.
2. On 03 October 2019, the soldiers of the regular army of the Makutano Position directly attacked three Banyamulenge civilians by forcing them to abandon their herd of three hundred (300) cattle to the Mai-Mai who had just attacked their village of Nkango in Itombwe;
3. Between May and July 2019, radio communications from Mai-Mai Bilozebishambuke were intercepted by some FARDC elements on the exchanges related to the instructions given to the Mai-Mai militias by Colonel Katembo, then Commander of the 12th Rapid Intervention Brigade, concerning the attacks that these Mai-Mai militias were to carry out against the Minembwe region.
4. In October 2019, Mr. Rutiririza Bibogo was coldly shot dead in Mikenke market by a regular army soldier without the perpetrator of this murder being prosecuted to date.
5. As of 18 April 2020, the assassination of Mr Adoni and the ladies Nyamutarutwa and Nyamwiza was organized and supervised by the soldiers of the Kivumu position on the outskirts of Minembwe, where the victims were lured into their cassava fields by these soldiers promising to ensure their safety, while they were in the process of sourcing food. When the victims were nearing the end of their work and the soldiers had just withdrawn to their position promising them that they were out of danger, the Mai-Mai burst onto them. These ladies were subjected to inhumane rape and physical mutilation, before being murdered[1] and their unfortunate companion Adoni was shot dead by soldiers of the regular army.[2] This was confirmed by the survivor of this carnage, the old lady Anna Nyansasirwa who spent two days in the hands of these killers, before being released with a message to give the Banyamulenge to leave Congo if they do not want to be massacred.[3]
6. During the attack on the Mikenke Banyamulenge Camp for displaced persons on 28 May 2020 by the Mai-Mai Ebuila group, the spokesman of Operation Sukola II South Kivu, Captain Kasereka Dieudonné, in an attempt to confuse national and international opinion on the objective of this attack, alleged in his communiqué on this attack, that the victims were hit by stray bullets, as if the said attack was not aimed at this camp of displaced Banyamulenge.[4] Seven people were injured in the attack, including the old lady Uzie who later died of her injuries at the Bukavu General Hospital during the month of June 2020.
7. On 18 June 2020, the FARDC of the Mikenke Position attacked the Mikenke camp for internally displaced persons by wounding Mr. Buhunira son of Rwandikiye and Mr. Bukuru son of Rudahirwa on the pretext of searching for Twirwaneho (civilian self-defence group) elements who had allegedly infiltrated the camp of displaced persons.[5]
8. During the Kahwela attacks of 08 and 09 September 2020, during which two civilians, including Superintendent and Kazayo were killed, the Twitter message of the Kivu Security Barometer the day after these attacks revealed that according to a source within the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (AFDRC), and several sources close to the Mai-Mai, AFDRC members had handed over ammunitions to the Mai-Mai groups two days before the offensive, near Mikenge (Mwenga territory, South Kivu, DRC).[6]
9. In Bibokoboko, on 10 March 2021, an AFDRC soldier shot dead two Banyamulenge men who had just returned from the Lusenda market, Mr. Ruzigamanzi Sadock and Mr. Bigaraba Zacharie.
10. In Bibokoboko on 07 April 2021, three Banyamulenge civilians, namely John Ndisabiye, Ntarambirwa and Nzayiramya, were coldly murdered by AFDRC elements when they were returning from pursuing their cows that had been looted by the Mai-Mai, while the same soldiers who murdered them had not intervened to prevent the looting of their victims’ cows;
11. As of 09 April 2021, the village of Kabingo was attacked by the Mai-Mai militias from Lulenge and Milimba. While the young Banyamulenge civilians tried to repel this attack, the FARDC soldiers intervened to rescue the Mai-Mai, killing four civilians among the young Banyamulenge civilian self-defense members including, Ndatabaye Mugara, Ruzigama, Nsengiyumva Buhiga and Musafiri Alexandre. Reliable local sources indicate that the bodies of the victims were brutally mutilated by AFDRC soldiers, so much so that it was difficult to look their corpses.
12. As of May 29, 2021, the Mai-Mai and the Burundian rebels of RED-Tabara crossed the lands of Gongwa, Murambya, Mbundamo and Nyarwango controlled by the regular army soldiers to go and destroy the Banyamulenge villages of Murambya/Catholic, Murambya/Kwijimbo, Kanongo, Rushimisha, Muturirwa, Nyakirango and Nyarwango, where they killed seven people including chief Seruhigiza, Pasteur, Rugeza and four other people whose names have not been otherwise identified, wounding eleven people and taking hostage twenty-seven people, both women and minor children, including the lady Nyakibanza and her five children (after killing her husband), Munyura and her two children, Nyaziraje and her two children , Nyandamira and his four children, Neema, Chantal, Ramu, Nyansuhurwa, Maombi and Nyakazungu, and Mr. Butoto: in all ten women and fourteen children.
13. The shootings ordered by the Commander of the Rapid Reaction Brigade of Minembwe, General Patrick Opia and the Commander of the Third Defense Zone, General Philemon Yav on June 30, 2021 of the peaceful Banyamulenge civilians of Minembwe is another proof of the desire of the Congolese military hierarchy to put an end once and for all to the presence of the Banyamulenge in the highlands of the South-Kivu. During these attacks on the defenseless civilian population, the ladies Nyirantabara, Nyiramuhoza Bibiane, Royi Mituzo and Nyirantonesha were killed. Mr. Bitwenge, another young Munyamulenge man in his thirties was killed by the same soldiers of the 12th Brigade during the same evening. Two days earlier, the soldiers of the same Rapid Reaction Brigade had just killed Mr. Nzabisha, again with complete impunity. All these victims were killed simply, because they are Banyamulenge who, according to the viewpoint of these soldiers, must be erased from Congolese soil.[7]
14. To these ethnic killings, we must mention also the attacks with batons and sticks ordered by the same Brigade against women sitting-in in front of its office, protesting against the arbitrary and illegal arrests of which the young Banyamulenge are victims by the Congolese army. During these attacks several women were seriously injured, including among others, Narukundo Namuco (45 years), Namatungo Resa (75 years), Nagitamu Elisée (39 years) Rahaba Nampundu (54 years), Niyirera Francine (58 years), Nanzanika Nambonwa (42 years), Namugisha Solange (32 years), Nankunzi Namahoro (50 years), Nantore Dibora (60 years), Nakirindo Jeanne (33 years), Nanduhura Aimée (39 years) and Natibura Marciane (73 years): all were interned at the Minembwe Hospital because of the serious injuries that these soldiers inflicted during these attacks.

It should be stressed that all attacks by the Mai-Mai and their Burundian allies against Banyamulenge civilians are always followed by a disinformation release from the spokesman of Operation Sukola II, South Kivu, Captain Kasereka Dieudonné, with the aim of diverting the attention of national and international opinion to the reality of this war.[8] 

Otherwise, the war that the Mai-Mai militias and Burundian rebels are waging against the Banyamulenge is a war waged by the Congolese government against the Banyamulenge, the aim of which is to drive them out of Congolese soil. The Mai-Mai militias and the Burundian rebels being only agents in the service of the Congolese state, and this is the very reason for all the silence on the part of the Congolese government in the face of the tragedy of extermination of this victim community: May the Lord God come to their aid.

In view of all the above, the following recommendations are imperative:

With regard to the Congolese government

• Acknowledge that the large-scale killings of the members of the Banyamulenge civilian population throughout the uvira, Fizi and Itombwe highlands in the territory of Mwenga, the total destruction of their villages in all areas of their homes and the systematic looting of their livestock, constitute irrefutable evidences that this war is aimed at the total uprooting of the Banyamulenge on Congolese soil.
• To recognize that its conscious failure to acknowledge the presence of the Burundian rebels in this war against the Banyamulenge sufficiently demonstrates its unambiguous desire to use them to uproot the victims on the soil of the DRC.
• Recognize that the links of proven complicity between the soldiers of the regular army and the Mai-Mai militias and the Burundian rebels of various factions in this war against the Banyamulenge, constitute sufficient evidence that all these fighters are agents in the service of the Congolese government in this project of ethnic cleansing of the Banyamulenge on Congolese soil.
• Immediately cease supporting all the armed groups involved in this macabre plan and effectively protect the Banyamulenge from the full realization of this despicable plan which is in its final phase, under the supervision of the Congolese armed forces.
• Launch large-scale operations against the Burundian rebels of RED-Tabara, FNL and Forebu and their allies Mai-Mai, perpetrators of the mass killings of innocent civilians, the destruction of villages on a large scale and the systematic looting of the cows of the Banyamulenge civilian populations, in order to save the victims against the total completion of this ethnic cleansing plan to which they are subjected, under the FARDC’s complicit eye.
• Initiate prosecutions against all FARDC officers who played any role in this tragedy.
• Protect the victims of this human tragedy by restoring them to their respective environments of origin with guarantees of effective security.
• Consider the repatriation of refugees from this war who have fled to foreign countries in conditions of effective security.
• Establish permanent mechanisms for reconciliation between local communities in the highlands.
• Set up judicial mechanisms to repair the damage suffered by the various victims of this war.

To the international community

• Note that there is a large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Banyamulenge in the highlands of the South Kivu Provence.
• Note the unambiguous role of the Congolese government in the tragedy that threatens to exterminate the Banyamulenge in their environment of origin.
• Condemn the complicit silence of the Monusco contingent in this tragedy that threatens to exterminate the Banyamulenge in their environment of origin.
• Consider, as far as possible, an international intervention to protect the victims of this plan of ethnic cleansing, because there is a just cause that requires this intervention.
• Consider the prosecution of the intellectual and material authors of crimes committed in this war on the basis of the mechanisms of the International Criminal Court.

Thus, you will have effectively protected the victims of this war and avenged the memory of those who have been unjustly killed.

Bibliography

1. Twitter
2. Twitter of the Security Barometer of Kivu of 10 September 2020 on the Mai-Mai attack of the Banyamulenge villages of Kahwela on 8 and 9 September 2020.
3. UN Reports
4. The Final report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo of June 10, 2021, Annex 107, para. 114.

• Testimonies

1. Testimony of Mrs Anna Nyansasirwa, survivor of the Kivumu massacre.
2. The testimony of one of the women who had been kidnapped during the Murambya on an existing alliance between militiamen Mai-Mai, Burundian rebels and regular army soldiers over sharing of war plunder looted from the Banyamulenge.
3. Others
4. Diagram of the Itombwe area/Mai-Mai attacks and AFRDC Positions

[1] The photos of the two ladies Nyamutarutwa and Nyamwiza show that they were horribly killed after being wickedly raped and physically mutilated. 

[2] According to local sources, Mr. Adoni was killed by regular army soldiers when he tried to warn the ladies Nyamwiwa, Nyamutarutwa and Nyansansirwa at their fields, that the Mai-Mai had just arrived. 

 [6] The Twitter of the Kivu security barometer on the complicity of regular army soldiers in attacks on villages in Kwahwela of 08 and 09 2020.

[7] Threats that the soldiers of the 12^th Rapid Reaction Brigade made to the civilian population of Minembwe during the attacks of July 1, 2021.

[8] When the Mikenke IDP camp was attacked by the Mai-Mai Ebuila group, and that seven people were seriously injured, including the old lady Uzie who died from injuries at the general hospital in Bukavu, Kasereka jusfied the consequences of this attack on the victims as having been caused by stray bullets as if the attack was directed elsewhere.