The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk during the 55th Session of the Human Rights Council said that the M23 rebel group in DRC summarily executed 156 people.
“M23 was also found to have sexually abused 30 women and 12 children, and abducted 127 civilians including to forcibly recruit them to fight. These figures do not represent the full scale of abuses,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
According to humanitarian sources the conflict in the eastern DRC has displaced more than 2.5 million people in North Kivu between February 2022 and January 2024.
According to the United Nations, the cost of the crisis is catastrophic. Between 1 October 2023 and 15 March 2024, the UN Joint Human Rights Office documented 2,110 human rights violations and abuses throughout DRC.
“Of these 59 per cent were committed by armed groups and they include summary executions and conflict-related sexual violence. Almost half of these violations and abuses were committed in the North Kivu province, where violence and tensions have reached boiling point,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
“I welcome the progress that DRC has made in the fight against impunity. The fact that last year, 599 people were brought to justice for human rights violations and abuses by military courts is an encouraging step. I strongly urge these efforts to continue,” added the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The UN agency indicated that the insecurity in DRC is being fuelled by a seemingly impassable mountain of challenges from large-scale corruption, to the unbridled race between multiple parties to take control and exploit the country’s wealth of natural resources, to ongoing violent land disputes.
“I also remain extremely concerned about conflict and violence in the DRC spilling over throughout the region, as well as the active involvement of other regional actors in eastern DRC,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
The conflict in DRC has seen the deployment of SADC forces after the withdrawal of the East African forces last year.
Armed conflict between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese army (FARDC) has intensified and now spread beyond Rutshuru to Masisi territory.
Hundreds of thousands have fled to the provincial capital of Goma, and further north in South Kivu province.