GOMA, Congo (AP) — The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group on Thursday held a symbolic burial for 22 people killed in a drone strike earlier this month in the North Kivu province in eastern Congo.
M23 claimed that the attack, which targeted their military positions in the Masisi territory on Jan. 2, was carried out by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and their allies.
The rebel group said all the victims are civilians, a claim questioned by at least one expert who said some may have been combatants killed in fighting.
The FARDC has not commented on the attack. Patrick Muyaya, the spokesperson for the Congolese government, said in a post on X that Thursday’s funeral was “the height of indecency and inhumanity.”
“The mass graves, the bodies abandoned by the roadside, the villages emptied of their inhabitants,” he said. “No ceremony, no staged event, no fabricated narrative can erase the reality of these crimes, nor absolve the father #Rwanda and the #M23 who planned, ordered, and executed them.”
The burial comes as the rebel group engages in ongoing negotiations with the Congolese government to end decades of fighting.
The ceremony was held at the Unity Stadium in Goma, the provincial capital, in the presence of M23 administration officials, representatives of religious groups and hundreds of family members of the victims. The bodies, accompanied by relatives, had been transferred the day before from Masisi to the provincial capital.
According to the M23, the victims died in strikes carried out using so-called kamikaze drones in several localities in the Masisi territory. Three other people were reportedly buried on site, the rebels said, while dozens were injured as a result of the explosions.
The medical director of Masisi General Hospital, Théophile Kubuya Hangi, said the facility had received 47 wounded after the explosions.
“Twenty-two people died from their injuries. Fourteen wounded are still hospitalized and receiving care,” he told the AP.
Promesse Hagenimana was among those injured in the bombing.
“We were standing on the road in front of a concrete house. Moments later, the house exploded before our eyes,” she said. “We threw ourselves to the ground. When I got up, my arm felt heavy. Next to me, a little boy was dead. I ran to the hospital before losing consciousness. ”
The administrator of the Masisi territory, Emmanuel Ndizeye, said during the ceremony that the area had been hit by “a series of bombings.” He specified that the bodies transferred to Goma came only from areas accessible by road.
“In some localities, insecurity and the state of the roads do not allow for the evacuation of victims, who have been buried on site,” he said.
Erasto Musanga, named as the governor of North Kivu by the M23 administration, accused Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi of being responsible for the violence.
“Even as we speak, Tshisekedi is killing more people,” he said, threatening legal action through the M23’s own justice system.
During the ceremony, several family members, in tears, approached the coffins of their loved ones. None agreed to speak to the media.
According to researcher Stewart Muhindo from the Kinshasa-based Ebuteli research center, “the figure of 22 civilians killed is greatly exaggerated,” and could be intended to elicit sympathy from the international community.
He said that according to sources on the ground in Masisi, the actual number of civilian casualties did not appear to exceed a dozen, adding that some of the coffins presented could contain the bodies of combatants killed in the clashes.
Congo, the U.S. and U.N. experts accuse Rwanda of backing M23, which has grown from hundreds of members in 2021 to around 6,500 fighters, according to the U.N.
More than 100 armed groups are vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo, near the border with Rwanda, most prominently M23. The conflict has created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises, with more than 7 million people displaced, according to the U.N. agency for refugees.
Despite the signing of a deal between the Congolese and Rwandan governments brokered by the U.S. and ongoing negotiations between rebels and Congo, fighting continues on several fronts in eastern Congo, continuing to claim numerous civilian and military casualties.
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