UN rights body holds urgent session on violence in Democratic Republic of Congo
UN experts say the rebels are backed by roughly 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda.
The UN’s top human rights body is holding an urgent session on spiralling violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda-backed rebels recently captured a key city and some 3,000 people have been killed since late January.
The special session of the Human Rights Council was called by the Democratic Republic of Congo with the support of dozens of countries.
The government in Kinshasa urged the 47-member country council to hold Rwanda and the M23 rebels who captured the city of Goma responsible for crimes against humanity, and to create a fact-finding mission to examine rights abuses in the area.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has urged the rebels to lay down their guns and agree to mediation.
Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said an estimated 3,000 people were killed and nearly 2,900 wounded in an upsurge in violence since January 26. He said the real figures are “probably a lot higher”.
“If nothing is done, then the worst could still be yet to come for the inhabitants of the eastern part of the country, but also in people living beyond the DRC’s borders,” he said.
The area holds vast deposits of minerals critical to the manufacture of much of the world’s technology, including mobile phones.
Mr Turk noted attacks by M23 and their allies, the use of heavy weaponry, and intense fighting with the country’s armed forces and their allies.
“The Congolese people have been suffering terribly for decades,” he said, calling for international action.
“How many more innocent lives must be lost before sufficient political will is galvanised to resolve this crisis?”
The rebels sought to reassure residents on Thursday, holding a stadium rally and promising safety under their administration as they try to shore up public support amid growing international pressure.
Patrick Muyaya Katembwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s communications minister, called on the council to “hold Rwanda responsible for its war crimes and crimes against humanity” through allegedly forced displacement and an aim “to definitively occupy these territories”.
After a string of statements by diplomats, the council was expected to consider a draft text presented by the Democratic Republic of Congo that would among other things create an independent fact-finding mission into human rights violations and abuses in the region.
