At Rutshuru hospital, victims of the war waged since the end of 2021 by the rebels of the March 23 Movement in the Democratic Republic of Congo are treated. An AFP report to read on the Sciences et Avenir website.
A door opens onto rows of beds. Dozens of bodies are stretched out, silent. Whether civilians, soldiers or militiamen, in the war waged by the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mutilated bodies and emaciated children end up here, in Rutshuru hospital. The March 23 Movement (M23) is the latest avatar of the Tutsi-dominated rebellions supported by neighboring Rwanda, defeated in 2013. Since the end of 2021, these rebels have taken up arms again, accusing Kinshasa of not having respected the agreements on their demobilization.
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This week, a confidential report by experts mandated by the United Nations and consulted by AFP affirms that the Rwandan army has “provided troop reinforcements to the M23” et “launched military interventions against Congolese armed groups and positions of the Congolese Armed Forces” since at least November 2021. Kigali on Thursday challenged these “invalid claims” and advanced sound “right to defend one’s territory”. Five months of “hit and run” attacks by the M23 on the positions of the Congolese army – and the Virunga National Park – have since the end of March been transformed into artillery barrages, to prevent the government from retaking the territory now under rebellion control.
“They were mortaring us… only mortar shells, for hours”, says a soldier, barely back on his feet at Rutshuru hospital. He was gutted by shrapnel in the clashes just twenty kilometers from the city. The area where he was fighting a month ago with his regiment is now fully controlled by the M23. In the long room floats a smell of perspiration and a dull calm, damaged by a few moans and the murmur of the nurses. Advancing in the central bay, the gaze attaches to limbs swaddled in white bandages. I[…]
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