Two food sellers in the town of Lubero, North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Dec. 18, 2024.PHILEMON BARBIER/AFP/Getty Images
Rwandan soldiers were responsible for a horrific rocket attack that killed at least 17 people, mainly women and children, in a refugee camp in Eastern Congo last year, a new United Nations report says.
The 160-page report by a UN group of experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, published this week, contains new details of Rwanda’s extensive military intervention in neighbouring Congo, where the Rwandan-backed M23 militia has expanded its control of a vast swath of Congolese territory.
As many as 4,000 Rwandan soldiers continue to operate in Eastern Congo, supporting the M23 rebels with sophisticated weaponry and equipment that Congo’s army does not possess, the report says.
The rebels, with Rwanda’s military help, have captured a major Congolese mining site for coltan, a key element in the supply chain for computers and cellphones, and are smuggling huge amounts of the mineral across the border to Rwanda, it says.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have been forced into makeshift shelters around Goma, the regional capital, after losing their homes in the M23 offensive. The rebel group expanded its territorial control by 30 per cent from April to November last year, the UN report says.
In the rocket attack last May, a shell exploded in the middle of a crowded tent camp on the outskirts of Goma. Videos posted online showed scenes of maimed bodies, injured victims carried to hospital on motorcycles and a child screaming for its dead mother.
At the time, M23 denied Congo’s allegations that it was responsible for the shelling. But the new UN report concludes, on the basis of extensive evidence, that the attack was launched by Rwandan troops who used portable 122 mm rocket launchers. They fired six rockets that landed in the camps for displaced people on May 3, including one that killed at least 17 people and injured 35, the report says.
The rockets may have been fired in retaliation for Congolese military attacks that originated from sites in the camps – but such rockets are indiscriminate and have extensive fragmentation effects, causing metal to fly outward, which is “particularly dangerous in densely populated areas” and “likely to cause unintended harm to civilians,” the UN experts said.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame, speaking to journalists this week, denied any connection to the M23 militia. But the latest UN report contains several pages of photos showing Rwandan troops supporting M23 in Congo. The UN experts said they have extensive evidence – including authenticated photos, drone footage, video recordings, witness testimony and intelligence reports – that confirm “systematic border incursions” into Congo by the Rwandan military.
The report describes a range of sophisticated weaponry that M23 and Rwandan troops are wielding in Congo, including long-range guided missiles – never before been seen in the country – along with electronic warfare devices that disrupt aircraft navigation systems. These devices have been widely used by Rwandan and M23 troops in eastern Congo, causing the crash of a UN surveillance drone and posing serious risks to humanitarian and civilian flights, it says.
As M23 captures more towns and villages, some of its leaders have made contact with an Islamist rebel group further north in the region to negotiate a non-aggression pact and access to its territory, it said.
The M23 offensive has continued in Eastern Congo despite an official ceasefire, suggesting the militia’s true objective is “territorial expansion and the long-term occupation and exploitation of conquered territories,” the report says.
It says the rebels are setting up a parallel government, including a “ministry” that issues permits to miners and traders and maintains control of key transportation routes and mining sites – including one of the world’s biggest coltan mines, which they captured last April.
This led to the fraudulent export of at least 150 tonnes of coltan from Congo to Rwanda last year, generating US$800,000 in monthly tax revenue for the rebels, the UN experts said. The smuggled coltan was then mixed in with Rwandan minerals, causing the largest contamination of mineral supply chains ever recorded in the region, they said.
Rwanda reported this week that its exports had surged by 78 per cent in the third quarter of last year, with two-thirds going to the United Arab Emirates, including coltan and gold.