Rwanda can no longer accept refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has been plagued by violence by armed groups in the east of the country, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Monday (January 9). This announcement is the latest in the wake of heightened tensions between Kigali and Kinshasa.
In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, an unstable region rich in natural resources, fighting between government forces and rebels from the March 23 Movement (M23), a former Tutsi rebellion, has heightened tensions with neighboring Rwanda, which is the Democratic Republic Republic of Congo accused of encouraging militia. Kigali denies any involvement.
This violence has prompted many Congolese to emigrate to neighboring countries, including Rwanda. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of November 2022, Rwanda had around 72,000 Congolese refugees.
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“We cannot continue to take in refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Paul Kagame told the Senate, continuing: “It’s not Rwanda’s problem. And we will make sure 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo” between at least November 2021 and October 2022 The European Union called on Rwanda to “stop supporting the M23”.
Instrumentalize the conflict
Rwanda has repeatedly blamed the authorities in Kinshasa for the crisis in eastern DRC and accused the international community of ignoring their alleged support for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan Hutu rebel movement, in the 1994 involved in the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda.
The existence of this militia, portrayed as a threat by Kigali, and the violence it inflicts on civilians have justified previous Rwandan interventions in Congolese territory.
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Rwanda has accused the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which faces presidential elections in December 2023, of exploiting the conflict for electoral purposes and “fabricating” a massacre, which a United Nations investigation says was carried out by the M23 in late November and claimed, according to a still preliminary report the lives of at least 131 civilians in the villages of Kishishe and Bambo.
Diplomatic initiatives have been launched to try to resolve the crisis in eastern DRC, where a Kenyan-led East African regional force is based.