On Tuesday, July 23, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, visited the Nkamira Transit Centre in Rubavu District, Western Province.
The camp, which shelters hundreds of Congolese Tutsi refugees, was the focus of her visit. Earlier on Monday, Nderitu had met with President-elect Paul Kagame. During her visit to Nkamira, she was briefed on the conditions in the refugee camps and engaged with residents, many of whom have fled conflict zones in DR Congo, including North Kivu Province.
Nderitu listened to their distressing accounts of violence and severe hardships, as reported by her office on X (formerly Twitter).
As of August last year, Rwanda had welcomed over 11,500 refugees from eastern DR Congo since 2022, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The initial group of Congolese refugees arrived in Rubavu District, Western Province, in November 2022, as the conflict between the Congolese armed forces and the M23 rebels—who are fighting to protect persecuted communities in DR Congo—intensified near the Rwandan border.
“I carry with me the harrowing stories of identity-based attacks, brutal killings, torture, and rape that I heard. They will be heard. We must call for action to ensure peace and safety and their return home,” Nderitu stated on X (formerly Twitter).
In her meeting with President-elect Kagame on Monday, Nderitu discussed her office’s efforts, particularly in combating genocide denial and hate speech both regionally and globally.
Rwanda currently hosts over 82,000 Congolese refugees across various camps, including Nkamira Transit Centre in Rubavu District and Mahama Refugee Camp in Eastern Province. Congolese Tutsi communities, in particular, have been targeted by hate speech and ethnically motivated violence, leading many to flee to neighboring countries, as documented by the UN.
During her visit to Kigali in April, Nderitu emphasized that the Congolese government has a duty to safeguard the Tutsi and Banyamulenge communities, who face persecution based on their identity. Speaking during the 30th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, she reiterated her concern about “risk factors for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity” in eastern DR Congo.
Nderitu’s office has documented significant violence in eastern DR Congo, particularly against Tutsi communities targeted by groups such as the FDLR—a Rwandan militia formed by survivors of the 1994 genocide. In November 2022, she referred to the violence against Congolese Tutsi and Banyamulenge as a “warning sign” given the region’s history of genocide.
Bernard Maingain, a Belgian lawyer, has previously denounced hate speech in eastern DR Congo and urged the international community to prioritize funding for an effective justice system to address it. Despite these calls, there has been little progress. The arrival of Interahamwe militia and members of the former Rwandan army—perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi—in DR Congo in 1994 exacerbated the genocide ideology in the region, now targeting Congolese Tutsi.
“The hate ideology has been present for years and was intensified in recent months, but the core issue is that there has never been a comprehensive effort to eliminate it, and we are now witnessing the results,” Maingain stated on a televised show on December 27, 2022.
The origins of the conflict and violence against Kinyarwanda-speaking Tutsi communities, sometimes called Banyamulenge—one of the Kinyarwanda-speaking groups in DR Congo—can be traced back to the early 1960s, when the country gained independence. Rather than addressing the underlying causes of insecurity in eastern DR Congo, the United Nations Security Council has focused primarily on the impacts of the Rwandan genocidal militia’s presence in the region.
The nationality of communities that found themselves within Congo’s borders following the 1885 Berlin Conference has been a point of contention. African leaders such as the late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and former South African President Thabo Mbeki have addressed the issue concerning Congolese Tutsi communities.
Mbeki emphasized that the Congolese government must acknowledge that all individuals in DR Congo are Congolese and have a duty to protect everyone. He noted that the emergence of the M23 rebel group, regardless of who is behind it, stems from a segment of the population in eastern Congo feeling unprotected. Mbeki, who served as South Africa’s president from June 1999 to September 2008, traced this issue back to the era of President Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Zaire (now DR Congo) from 1971 to 1997. Mbeki pointed out that during Mobutu’s regime, the Banyamulenge were falsely labeled as Rwandans rather than Congolese.