DR Congo: Ethnic Militias Attack Civilians in Katanga | WPN World People News

The widespread killing and displacement of civilians by ethnic militia in northern Katanga, in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, shows the urgent need for the government to protect civilians. The government should act to address the sources of violence in the region.

Several thousand ethnic Batwa, or Pygmy, sought refuge in an abandoned factory building known as Cotanga in Nyunzu, southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, following a nearby attack on a displacement camp by ethnic Luba militia fighters on April 30, 2015.

Human Rights Watch interviewed survivors of one of the worst recent incidents, on April 30, 2015, when ethnic Luba fighters attacked a camp for displaced people outside the town of Nyunzu. The assailants burned the camp to the ground and killed at least 30 men, women, and children from the marginalized Batwa community, known as “Pygmy,” with machetes, arrows, and axes. Dozens of others are missing and feared dead.

“The ethnic fighting in northern Katanga has come at a terrible cost to civilians,” said Ida Sawyer, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Congolese authorities with UN support should improve civilian protection, investigate and prosecute all those responsible for the atrocities, and address the communal tensions and discrimination that appear to have sparked the fighting.”
Since large-scale fighting broke out in 2013 between ethnic Luba and the Batwa, the United Nations (UN) has reported hundreds of civilians killed, dozens of villages burned to the ground, and tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes.

The fighting in Katanga has received little national or international attention, while the plight of Batwa communities in Congo, indigenous groups that have long been the target of discrimination from local authorities and other communities, is often ignored, Human Rights Watch said.

The Human Rights Watch findings are based on two research missions to remote parts of northern Katanga and research in the former capital of Katanga, Lubumbashi, between May and July 2015. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 60 victims, witnesses, aid workers, rights activists, local and provincial authorities, army, police, and intelligence officers, and UN peacekeepers.

Simmering tensions between Batwa and Luba in Katanga erupted in major fighting in mid-2013 in Manono territory, after Batwa started demanding respect for their basic rights, including access to land and an end to alleged forced labor or a form of slavery. Both communities formed loosely organized militias and the fighting spread to Kabalo, Kalemie, and southern Nyunzu territories.

In January 2015, over 3,500 families fleeing violence in southern Nyunzu and Manono territories gathered outside of the town of Nyunzu. The site became known as the Vumilia 1 camp. Most camp residents were Batwa, while Luba who had fled the violence largely sought refuge with families in the surrounding community.

In the first few months of 2015, Batwa fighters known as “Perci” armed with bows and arrows and machetes brutally attacked Luba in southern Nyunzu and northern Manono territories, killing and kidnapping civilians and burning entire villages. A 12-year-old Luba boy told Human Rights Watch that during an attack in early 2015, Batwa fighters had killed seven members of his family.

After news of these attacks reached the town of Nyunzu, Luba fighters organized an attack on the Batwa in the Vumilia 1 camp. The Luba fighters, known as “Elements,” were armed with machetes, axes, and bows and arrows, wore amulets and other witchcraft symbols, and allegedly cut off the genitals of some victims.

“People started to flee, not knowing that the Elements were everywhere in the camp,” a Batwa woman told Human Rights Watch. “They started to shoot arrows at us. We had no arms to protect ourselves. They massacred us. They killed so many Pygmies. They killed us like animals, like things with no value.”

All of the makeshift homes in the camp burned to the ground, Human Rights Watch found during a visit to the camp several weeks later. Following the attack, authorities moved several thousand survivors to an abandoned factory building called Cotanga, about two kilometers away in the town of Nyunzu. On May 3, Luba fighters attacked the Cotanga site as well, wounding at least two Batwa.

Batwa have been unable to leave the Cotanga site to look for loved ones missing since April 30 or to participate in burials organized by Congolese Red Cross workers, afraid of being targeted by Luba militia surrounding the site. In early May, two Batwa men who left the Cotanga site to walk around Nyunzu town were wounded by Luba fighters.

Local authorities have warned aid workers and local human rights activists not to speak out about the attack or the number of people killed. In interviews with Human Rights Watch, local and provincial government and army officials – many of whom are Luba – sought to minimalize the Vumilia 1 killings. Without backing up their claims, they said the number of Batwa killed ranged from none to four.

In the weeks following the attack, the Congolese army and police sent in reinforcements to increase security around the town. The provincial interior minister, Juvénal Kitungwa, visited the area on May 18 and 19, with Martin Kobler, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUSCO. The mission had deployed about 20 peacekeepers to the town in early April. They sent in around 40 reinforcements after the attack on April 30, but they have since been withdrawn..

In early May the authorities arrested three Batwa, including an alleged militia leader, and one alleged Luba militia leader. None have been officially charged, and it is not clear if those arrested were actually involved in the attacks.

On July 16, Katanga province was divided into four provinces as part of découpage, the subdivision of Congo’s former 11 provinces into 26. Nyunzu territory is part of the new Tanganyika province, in northern Katanga, an isolated and underdeveloped region that has not benefitted from the vast wealth of resources, including copper and cobalt, in southern Katanga.

“Protecting civilians from all communities who are at grave risk needs to be the government’s priority in northern Katanga,” Sawyer said. “But the issues underlying the violence won’t be resolved so long as the basic rights of the long-oppressed Batwa are not respected.”

Source: Human Rights Watch