Kinshasa, May 27th, 2025 (CPA).– Arbitrary executions and detentions committed in Goma and Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by the Rwandan army and its M23-AFC supporters have been denounced by an international organization in a report published and consulted by the CPA on Tuesday. ‘Eight detainees said they had seen fellow detainees die in detention, probably as a result of torture and harsh conditions. According to their testimony, hundreds of people are being held in overcrowded and unsanitary cells, and lack food, water, sanitary facilities and health care. Most of the detainees are unable to communicate with their families or lawyers,’ reads the Amnesty International report.
The report cites several sites that M23-AFC terrorists have used as places of detention, including official facilities such as the provincial office of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), the 34th military region complex and a camp in Kanyarucinya. Amnesty International claims to have received testimonies from two former detainees who described seeing M23-AFC elements kill two detainees with hammers, and shoot another who died instantly.
‘I saw a man being shot. It was as if he was a member of a gang of bandits. The M23-AFC asked him where he kept the weapons and where so-and-so was. They shot him in the stomach and in the right arm, in the shoulder’, said a former detainee in Goma. Another detainee at another site said he had seen an M23-AFC element kill two people. ‘The M23 element took out a hammer and hit him in the ribs; he died instantly. They took another. He said he was a former member of the Republican Guard [an elite corps of soldiers responsible for the security of the President of the DRC]. They hit him with a hammer, but he didn’t die straight away. The next morning, he was dead’, added this detainee quoted by Amnesty.
According to the testimonies of former detainees quoted in this report, those arrested are often accused, without proof, of supporting the Congolese army, collaborating with civil society or possessing weapons. Amnesty also reports that some detainees have been forced to join the ranks of the M23.