UN warns the climbing in the Congo War with M23 rebels that bring “summary executions” and gang violations

Geneva – The United Nations expressed an alarm for unbridled violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, while the M23 armed group pushed the country more deeply, warning of summary executions and generalized violations. The capture of the group of most rubber, the capital of the province of North Kivu, at the beginning of the week was a dramatic escalation in a region that has seen decades of conflict that involve multiple armed groups.

The UN said Thursday that it was “deeply concerned” about the “credible reports” that the M23 rebels backed by Rwanda advanced south of rubber to Bukavu, capital of the neighboring province of Kivu del Sur.

The spokesman for the UN Rights Office, Jeremy Laurence, said that since the beginning of the crisis, the bombs had at least two sites that housed internally displaced people (IDP), “causing civil victims.”

“We have also documented summary executions of at least 12 people in M23 between January 26 and 28,” journalists in Geneva told.

In areas under the control of M23 in southern Kivu, such as Minova, he said that the group had “occupied schools and hospitals, forced internal displaced people to leave the camps and submitted the civilian population to force recruitment and work forced”.

The Rights Office, he said, had documented “cases of sexual violence related to the conflict by the army and Wazalendo allies in the territory of Kalehe.”

“We are verifying reports that 52 women were violated by Congolese troops in southern Kivu, including alleged group rape reports,” he said.

Separately, he pointed out the reports of the RDC officials that indicate that at least 165 women were raped by inmates when more than 4,000 prisoners left the Muzenze prison of rubber on January 27, when the M23 began its assault on the city .

“Sexual violence related to the conflict has been a terrible characteristic of the armed conflict in the East RD for decades,” said Laurence.

The UN Rights Chief Volker Turk “is particularly concerned that this last climbing runs the risk of deepening the risk of sexual violence related to conflict much further,” he added.

Laurence warned that the “generalized proliferation of gum weapons” was “exacerbating” those risks.

He also requested investigations to take “the perpetrators before justice” and guarantee responsibility.

Ruth Maclean, head of the Western Africa Office for the New York Times, told CBS News this week that the increase in rubber violence was of particular concern since, for months, people from the surrounding countryside have arrived at the city ​​in search of respite of fighting. Many of the displaced people, said Maclean, lived outdoors, leaving them with greater risk.

The UN, many Western governments and the RDC accuse the Rwanda government of supporting M23 in an attempt to control and exploit the vasters mineral resources of its much larger eastern neighbor, in an escalation of a crisis that has been playing for many years In several international edges.