Child soldiers (File photo)
Violence in the Kasai provinces of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo appears to be taking on an increasing and disturbing ethnic
dimension, a report by the UN Human Rights Office has warned.
Information gathered by a team of UN human rights investigators*
suggests that some of the violations and abuses committed in the Kasais
may amount to crimes under international law.
The report is based on interviews with 96 people who had fled to
neighbouring Angola to escape the violence in Kamonia territory in
Kasai. The UN team was able to confirm that between 12 March and 19 June
some 251 people were the victims of extrajudicial and targeted
killings. These included 62 children, of which 30 were aged under eight.
Interviewees indicated that local security forces and other officials
actively fomented, fuelled, and occasionally led, attacks on the basis
of ethnicity. The UN Mission in the DRC has identified at least 80 mass
graves in the Kasais.
The team saw people who had been seriously injured or mutilated,
including a seven-year-old boy who had had several fingers cut off and
his face totally disfigured. A woman whose arm had been chopped off
recounted how she managed to escape, hiding for several days in the
forest before reaching the Angolan border and being airlifted to
hospital. Some of the refugees pleaded with the UN team to be heard, and
two of the people they interviewed died shortly afterwards from their
injuries.
“Survivors have spoken of hearing the screams of people being
burned alive, of seeing loved ones chased and cut down, of themselves
fleeing in terror. Such bloodletting is all the more horrifying because
we found indications that people are increasingly being targeted because
of their ethnic group,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. “Their
accounts should serve as a grave warning to the Government of the DRC
to act now to prevent such violence from tipping into wider ethnic
cleansing.”
“I call on the Government to take all necessary measures to
fulfil its primary obligation to protect people from all ethnic
backgrounds in the greater Kasai area,” he added.
The fighting began in August 2016 between the Kamuina Nsapu militia
and the Government. The UN team was able to confirm that another
militia, called the Bana Mura, was formed around March/April 2017 by
individuals from the Tshokwe, Pende and Tetela ethnic groups. It was
allegedly armed and supported by local traditional leaders and security
officials, including from the army and the police, to attack the Luba
and Lulua communities who are accused of being accomplices of the
Kamuina Nsapu.
According to the report, “the Bana Mura allegedly undertook a
campaign aimed at eliminating the entire Luba and Lulua populations in
the villages they attacked.” In many of the incidents reported to the
team, FARDC soldiers were seen leading groups of Bana Mura militia
during attacks on villages.
“The Government’s responsibility includes ensuring that those
who organised, recruited and armed the Bana Mura or other militias are
identified and prosecuted,” the High Commissioner stressed.
Many Luba and Lulua witnesses and victims said that the Bana Mura
militia carried out what appeared to be well-planned attacks on several
villages in Kamonia territory in April and May. Wearing white bandanas
made from mosquito nets and bracelets of leaves, the Bana Mura attacked
Luba and Lulua inhabitants, beheading, mutilating and shooting victims;
in some cases burning them alive in their homes.
In one of the most shocking attacks, in the village of Cinq, 90
patients, colleagues and people who had sought refuge in a health centre
were killed, including patients who could not escape when the surgical
ward was set on fire.
Victims’ accounts included a woman who told the team how the
militia killed her husband, attacked her daughter with machetes, and
shot her and her 22-month-old son, who later had to have his leg
amputated at a hospital in Angola. The team also heard accounts of rape
and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence.
People also told the UN team that the Kamuina Nsapu militia carried
out targeted killings, including against the military, police, and
public officials.
In all incidents documented by the team, the Kamuina Nsapu were
reported to have used boys and girls, many aged between seven and 13, as
fighters. Witnesses also said groups of girls called “Lamama”
accompanied the militia, shaking their straw skirts and drinking
victims’ blood as part of a magic ritual that was supposed to render the
group invincible. All the refugees interviewed by the team said they
were convinced of the magical powers of the Kamuina Nsapu.
“This generalised belief, and resulting fear, by segments of
the population in the Kasais may partly explain why a poorly armed
militia, composed to a large extent of children, has been able to resist
offensives by a national army for over a year,” the report says.
Given the situation in the Kasais, the report highlights the need
for the team of international experts on the situation in the Kasais,
established in June by the UN Human Rights Council, to be granted safe
and unrestricted access to information, sites and individuals deemed
necessary for their work.
This report will be put at the disposal of the international
experts, as well as any other judicial institution addressing the human
rights situation in the Kasais, in an effort to advance accountability
efforts in this regard.
