Rusizi, Rwanda
“I have ten children, but I am only here with three. I don’t know what happened to the other seven or their father”: Akilimali Mirindi fled the recent fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and found refuge in Rwanda.
The 40-year-old was living in Kamanyola, a town in South Kivu province near the Rwandan and Burundian borders, when a bomb destroyed her home.
Located some 70 km north of Uvira, a city conquered in recent days by the M23, Kamanyola has been under the control of this anti-government armed group supported by Kigali and its army since April. But in recent days, according to AFP reports from residents who have fled to Rwanda, the city has been bombed by the warring parties, causing numerous casualties.
โMany people died, young and old. I saw corpses as I fled, I stepped over some of them. I decided to cross into Rwanda with the others,โ Akilimali Mirindi told AFP from the Nyarushishi refugee camp in the Rusizi district of southeastern Rwanda.
On Friday, the M23 controlled Uvira, a strategic town with a population of hundreds of thousands.
According to the UN, more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have been displaced in eastern DRC since the M23 launched a new offensive in South Kivu in early December
The deal — hailed by US President Donald Trump as a “miracle” — was inked on December 4. Just says later, the Rwandan-backed M23 seized the key frontier city of Uvira along the border with Burundi, raising fears of the conflict breaking out into a regional war. (Photo by Jospin Mwisha / AFP)
– โMiracleโ agreement
The conquest of Uvira by the M23, which claims to defend the interests of the Tutsi populations in the region, comes nearly a year after another lightning offensive that enabled it to seize the two major cities in eastern DRC, Goma and Bukavu, between January and February.
It comes just after the โpeaceโ agreement signed on December 4 in Washington by DRC President Fรฉlix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, in the presence of their American counterpart Donald Trump, who described the text as a โgreat miracle.โ
โIt is clear that there is no agreement between Kagame and Tshisekedi,โ laments Thomas Mutabazi, who also fled the fighting. โIf they cannot reach an agreement, the war will continue.โ
โBombs were raining down on us from all sides,โ both from the DRC armed forces and their Burundian allies and from the M23, says the 67-year-old refugee. โWe had to leave our families and our fields. We know nothing, but we and our families are bearing the brunt of the consequences of the war.โ
The refugee camp, which houses about 1,000 people, is located on a hill surrounded by tea plantations. Many NGOs, supplied in particular by the World Food Programme (WFP), are present on site
– Children killed –
Jeanette Bendereza, 37, had already fled her home in Kamanyola once this year, before the M23 took control. She sought refuge in Burundi in February with her four children.
โWe came back when we were told that peace had returned,โ she said.
But the calm was short-lived.
โWe were used to a few bullets, but very quickly, bombs began to rain down, launched by Burundian troops,โ she said. โThat’s when we fled.โ
Burundi, which has tense relations with Rwanda, had sent troops to support the DRC army against the M23, but with the capture of Uvira, the armed group now controls the entire area bordering its land border.
โWe could hear the bombs chasing us,โ says Jeanette Bendereza, who says she does not know where her husband is and has no way of contacting him because she lost her cell phone while fleeing.
Olinabangi Kayibanda, 56, initially thought about staying in Kamanyola when the fighting began. โBut when we started to see people dying, others being maimed by the bombs (…) – even children were dying – so we decided to flee,โ he recalls.
Before adding: โI saw a neighbor killed in the bombing of her house. She died with her two children. She was pregnant.โ
Humaniterre
