The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has announced it has sued Rwanda at the Tanzania-based African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights for the violation of its national sovereignty, alleged killings, looting, and other violations in the DRC’s volatile east.
DRC’s government has long accused the neighboring Rwanda of backing the M23 group, a rebel military group which has carried out atrocities against civilians in the conflict-torn region of North Kivu province, located in the eastern DRC. The case, which is scheduled for a hearing on 12 February next year, is a “landmark moment”, said the DRC’s deputy minister of justice and legal affairs, Samuel Mbemba, as it seeks to bring justice for “decades of aggression against our country, the pillaging of our minerals, the rape of our children and women and the massacres of our people”.
In late September this year, DRC government announced it had taken Rwanda to the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) in the hope of securing reparations from its neighbor for “violating [DRC’s] sovereignty and national integrity”. The Tanzania-based court that is one of the organs of the East African Community (EAC) is yet to determine if it has jurisdiction over the case. Kigali has, however, rejected the move by the DRC government, saying that Kinshasa should first focus on delivering justice “to the victims” of its own armed forces before “giving lessons on justice”.