Kinshasa, August 4th, 2026 (CPA).– The creation of an international tribunal to try crimes committed in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been claimed, on Tuesday, by the President of the National Assembly, in a message posted on his X account. “Thirty years after the Rwandan genocide, DRC still bears the scars of a tragedy that has gone on for far too long: 10 million deaths, massacres, rapes, displacement and looting. An entire generation has known nothing but war. It is time for justice to be done. An international tribunal is essential,” has written Aime Boji. Through this statement, the president of the lower house of Parliament has reiterated his plea for the creation of an international judicial mechanism tasked to establish the responsibilities for crimes committed in the east of DRC and to prosecute their alleged perpetrators.
In his view, the scale of the atrocities recorded over nearly three decades calls for a judicial response commensurate with the suffering endured by the civilian population, against a backdrop where massacres, sexual violence, forced displacement and the plundering of natural resources continue to plague several provinces in the east of the country. This statement comes the day after the commemoration of the National Day of Remembrance for the Congolese Genocide for Economic Gain (Genocost), dedicated to the memory of the millions of victims of armed conflicts and crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since the mid-1990s, the eastern provinces of DRC have been the scene of conflicts involving several national and foreign armed groups. This violence has resulted in millions of deaths, displaced persons and victims of serious human rights violations. DRC regularly advocates to the international community for the establishment of judicial mechanisms capable to establish the responsibilities, punish the perpetrators of the most serious crimes and contribute to the consolidation of a lasting peace.