Deadly bomb attacks on displacement camps in east DRC blamed on Rwanda’s army, M23 rebels
Rwanda has denied accusations leveled against it by the Congolese and US governments, alleging that its forces and M23 rebel group attacked a displaced people’s camps on Friday (3 May), killing at least 12, including children, and injuring at least 20.
The explosions targeted two camps for internally displaced people in Lac Vert and Mugunga, near the city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to government officials, the United Nations and an aid group.
The attacks were a “flagrant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and may constitute a war crime”, the United Nations said in a statement.
FromWashington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement “The United States strongly condemns the attack from Rwanda Defense Forces and M23 positions on the Mugunga camp for internally displaced persons in eastern DRC.”
Miller said the United States was “gravely concerned” by the expansion in DR Congo of Rwandan forces and the M23, a mostly Tutsi group that resumed its armed campaign in the vast, turbulent DR Congo in 2021.
“It is essential that all states respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and hold accountable all actors for human rights abuses in the conflict in eastern DRC,” he said.
While some other sources, including an Al Jazeera journalist, reported that the shells were fired from an area controlled by M23, Rwanda on Saturday (4 May) denied the accusations of its involvement in the attack as “ridiculous”. But a spokesperson for the Rwanda government said the RDF is a “professional army” that would never attack displaced people and instead blamed the assault on militias supported by the Congolese military.
The DRC, the UN and Western countries have repeatedly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group in a bid to control mines and mineral resources in eastern DRC, an accusation that Kigali denies.
