UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk requires accountability for victims of atrocities.
Revealed On 5 Sep 2025
Gross rights violations, probably together with conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity, could have been dedicated by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia and the Congolese navy and its associates in jap Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in response to United Nations investigators.
A fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Workplace stated on Friday that it has decided that every one sides within the devastating battle had dedicated abuses since late 2024, together with abstract executions and rampant sexual violence within the provinces of North and South Kivu.
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Japanese DRC, a area bordering Rwanda, has been tormented by non-state armed teams and suffered excessive violence for greater than three many years.
Since taking on arms once more on the finish of 2021, the M23 armed group has seized swaths of land within the restive area with Rwanda’s backing, triggering an armed battle with the DRC navy, leading to a spiralling humanitarian disaster that killed 1000’s and displaced a minimum of seven million individuals.
Whereas a number of human rights our bodies and the UN have accused events within the DRC battle of gross atrocities, that is the primary UN report to seek out that these abuses could have constituted crimes towards humanity.
“The atrocities described on this report are horrific,” stated UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in a press release, calling for accountability for victims.
The findings “underscore the gravity and widespread nature of violations and abuses dedicated by all events to the battle, together with acts that will represent conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity”, the report added.
M23 seized Goma, jap DRC’s largest metropolis, in January and went on to make beneficial properties throughout North Kivu and South Kivu.
The UN report discovered the ethnic Tutsi-led M23 carried out abstract executions, torture, and enforced disappearances – which can quantity to crimes towards humanity.
The group additionally used systematic sexual violence, together with gang rape, largely towards girls, with an intent to “degrade, punish, and break the dignity of victims”, the report acknowledged.
M23 acquired coaching and operational assist from the Rwandan Defence Forces, and there are credible allegations of the covert presence of Rwandan personnel inside M23, it added.
Rwanda has repeatedly denied backing M23 and says its forces act in self-defence towards DRC’s military and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. M23 has additionally beforehand denied committing atrocities.
The report additionally discovered that the DRC armed forces and affiliated armed teams, reminiscent of pro-government militia fighters generally known as Wazalendo, had dedicated grave violations, together with gang rape, the deliberate killing of civilians, and looting.
In August, a separate UN report discovered that healthcare suppliers within the jap area of DRC handled greater than 17,000 victims of sexual violence from January to Might in 2024.
Following mediation by Qatar, the DRC and the rebels signed a declaration of ideas on July 19 during which they pledged to start out negotiating a peace deal in August.
The 2 sides have to date missed the deadline to achieve a peace settlement.