Armed militants from the M23 rebel group, now in control of the strategic eastern Congolese city of Goma, began forcibly expelling thousands of individuals they claim are illegal Rwandan nationals, AFP reported on Saturday.
Earlier in the week, on Monday, M23’s military spokesperson Willy Ngoma presented 181 men to the press at Goma’s main stadium, declaring them to be “Rwandan subjects” who had entered the Democratic Republic of Congo unlawfully.
Despite all the men holding Congolese identity documents, the M23 insisted the papers were forged. According to an AFP journalist present at the scene, M23 forces burned the documents in full view, setting them alight on the stadium pitch.
Women and children, many of them family members of the detained men, were transported to the stadium in trucks reportedly provided by the M23.
One of those arrested, who identified himself only as Eric, told AFP he was from Karenga, a town in North Kivu province often linked to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)—a rebel group established by former Rwandan Hutu officials involved in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
In the early hours of Saturday, 360 people were placed on buses departing from Goma, Eujin Byun, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), confirmed to AFP.
The UNHCR emphasised that “returns of refugees to their countries of origin must be safe, voluntary, and carried out with dignity, in accordance with international law”.
The convoy crossed into Rubavu in western Rwanda, as observed by an AFP correspondent.
“We will do everything to reintegrate them into society, so that they have the same responsibilities and the same rights as other Rwandans,” Prosper Mulindwa, mayor of Rubavu district, told the media.
Both the M23 and the Rwandan government accuse the Congolese authorities in Kinshasa of backing the FDLR, using this allegation as a central justification for their military actions in eastern DRC.
According to security and humanitarian sources, most of the expelled families originated from Karenga and were prevented from returning there following M23’s seizure of Goma. Many had been residing in a displacement centre in Sake, roughly 20 kilometres (13 miles) west of the city.
In a related development in March, M23 fighters handed over 20 individuals dressed in Congolese military uniforms—believed to be FDLR operatives—to the Rwandan authorities. The Congolese government, however, dismissed the handover as a “crude fabrication” designed to undermine the credibility of its national army.
