Authorities in Congo have accused Rwanda’s Army and its allied M23 rebel group of murdering dozens, kidnapping thousands more, and committing rape, torture, and looting in the war-torn country’s east.
According to a statement by the Congo’s Interior ministry on Wednesday, May 14, the alleged crimes were committed between May 10 and 13 against civilians accused by the rebels of belonging to the Congolese Army and its allied militias group.
“The toll includes 107 murders, more than 4,000 men and boys abducted and forcibly loaded onto trucks to an unknown destination, hundreds of cases of summary executions, rape, torture, looting, restrictions on freedom of movement, as well as incursions into health facilities,” the statement explained.
Congo’s accusation comes days after M23 presented hundreds of captured men at a stadium in Goma. The group said the captives were Congolese army or members of its allied militias whom Congo armed to foment conflict in order to blame it on M23.
M23 rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the west.
M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda.