Rwanda can no longer accommodate refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), plagued by violence from armed groups in the east of the country, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Monday (January 9th). This announcement is the latest episode in the heightened tensions between Kigali and Kinshasa.
In eastern DRC, a volatile region rich in mineral resources, fighting between government forces and rebels of the March 23 Movement (M23), a former Tutsi rebellion, has exacerbated tensions with neighboring Rwanda, which the DRC accuses to encourage the militia. Kigali denies any involvement.
This violence has pushed many Congolese to migrate to neighboring countries, including Rwanda. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Rwanda had some 72,000 Congolese refugees in November 2022.
“We cannot continue to welcome refugees” from the DRC, Paul Kagame told the Senate, continuing: “It’s not Rwanda’s problem. And we are going to make sure that everyone realizes that this is not Rwanda’s problem. “I refuse to allow Rwanda to bear this burden”he added.
In a report published in December 2022, experts commissioned by the United Nations claim to have collected “substantial evidence” demonstrating “the direct intervention of the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) on the territory of the DRC”at least between November 2021 and October 2022. The European Union called on Rwanda to “stop supporting the M23”.
Instrumentalize the conflict
Rwanda has repeatedly blamed the crisis in eastern DRC on the authorities in Kinshasa and accused the international community of turning a blind eye to its supposed support for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a movement of Rwandan Hutu rebels, some of whom were involved in the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
Presented as a threat by Kigali, the existence of this militia and the violence it inflicts on civilians have justified past Rwandan interventions in Congolese territory.
Rwanda has accused the DRC, where the presidential election is scheduled for December 2023, of instrumentalizing the conflict for electoral purposes and of having “made” a massacre which, according to a United Nations investigation, was committed at the end of November by the M23 and claimed the lives of at least 131 civilians in the villages of Kishishe and Bambo, according to a still provisional report.
Diplomatic initiatives have been launched to try to resolve the crisis in eastern DRC where an East African regional force, led by Kenya, is being deployed.