UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk requires accountability for victims of atrocities.
Printed On 5 Sep 2025
Gross rights violations, probably together with warfare crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity, might have been dedicated by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia and the Congolese navy and its associates in jap Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in line with United Nations investigators.
A fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Workplace mentioned on Friday that it has decided that every one sides within the devastating battle had dedicated abuses since late 2024, together with abstract executions and rampant sexual violence within the provinces of North and South Kivu.
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Japanese DRC, a area bordering Rwanda, has been suffering from non-state armed teams and suffered excessive violence for greater than three a long time.
Since taking on arms once more on the finish of 2021, the M23 armed group has seized swaths of land within the restive area with Rwanda’s backing, triggering an armed battle with the DRC navy, leading to a spiralling humanitarian disaster that killed 1000’s and displaced at the least seven million individuals.
Whereas a number of human rights our bodies and the UN have accused events within the DRC battle of gross atrocities, that is the primary UN report to search out that these abuses might have constituted crimes in opposition to humanity.
“The atrocities described on this report are horrific,” mentioned UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in an announcement, calling for accountability for victims.
The findings “underscore the gravity and widespread nature of violations and abuses dedicated by all events to the battle, together with acts which will represent warfare crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity”, the report added.
M23 seized Goma, jap DRC’s largest metropolis, in January and went on to make features throughout North Kivu and South Kivu.
The UN report discovered the ethnic Tutsi-led M23 carried out abstract executions, torture, and enforced disappearances – which can quantity to crimes in opposition to humanity.
The group additionally used systematic sexual violence, together with gang rape, largely in opposition to ladies, with an intent to “degrade, punish, and break the dignity of victims”, the report acknowledged.
M23 obtained coaching and operational help from the Rwandan Defence Forces, and there are credible allegations of the covert presence of Rwandan personnel inside M23, it added.
Rwanda has repeatedly denied backing M23 and says its forces act in self-defence in opposition to DRC’s military and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. M23 has additionally beforehand denied committing atrocities.
The report additionally discovered that the DRC armed forces and affiliated armed teams, reminiscent of pro-government militia fighters generally known as Wazalendo, had dedicated grave violations, together with gang rape, the deliberate killing of civilians, and looting.
In August, a separate UN report discovered that healthcare suppliers within the jap area of DRC handled greater than 17,000 victims of sexual violence from January to Might in 2024.
Following mediation by Qatar, the DRC and the rebels signed a declaration of rules on July 19 wherein they pledged to begin negotiating a peace deal in August.
The 2 sides have up to now missed the deadline to achieve a peace settlement.
