Western donors are under pressure to sanction Rwanda as the violence in the DRC worsens

According to the United Nations, a large number of recent attacks and fighting between M23 rebels and government troops have forced some 100,000 people from their homes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.N. charges Rwanda with supporting the rebels, which Rwanda refutes.

In the previous 12 months, at least 800,000 people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have been compelled to leave the violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many are residing in refugee camps in the DRC and in neighbouring nations.
Espoir Ndagije, who escaped to a camp in the DRC city of Goma, claimed he had no other option.

The M23 rebels hold every other region, so coming to Goma was the only choice. Here, life is difficult. Ndagije said Agence France-Presse, “We need assistance.

Drawing on long-standing tensions between Tutsis and Hutus that led to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which more than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by armed Hutu militia forces, the M23 rebels assert that they are defending ethnic Tutsis in the eastern DRC.

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In a study issued in December, a group of UN investigators discovered ample proof that Rwanda was aiding the M23 rebels and deploying its own forces across the border. The rebel organisation is charged with committing several crimes, including as the willful killing of people and mass rape.

The DRC, the European Union and the United States also blame Rwanda for helping the conflict.

After a U.N. mission visited the area this week, Modeste Mutinga Mutushayi, the DRC’s minister of humanitarian affairs, urged the rebels to leave.

On March 12, Mutushayi told reporters, “We are all listening, expecting that clear orders, clear communications, would be conveyed to Rwanda and to the M23 so that at the very latest on March 31, our land may be liberated.

The team also included Nicolas De Rivière, France’s ambassador to the UN. He called for a diplomatic resolution and stated that the U.N. Security Council will deal with the situation.

It is obvious that Rwanda supports the M23, according to De Rivière. “It is also undeniably known that the regular Rwandan army conducts incursions in North Kivu, and that this is likewise wrong. Thus, this is one of the issues that has to be raised (at the U.N. Security Council) and stopped.