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Congolese refugees described neighbours being massacred and losing children in the chaos as they fled into Rwanda to escape a surge in fighting despite a peace deal brokered by US President Donald Trump.
“I have 10 kids, but I’m here with only three. I don’t know what happened to the other seven, or their father,” Akilimali Mirindi, 40, told AFP in the Nyarushishi refugee camp in Rwanda’s Rusizi district.
Around 1,000 Congolese have ended up in this camp after renewed fighting broke out in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month. The M23 armed group, backed by Rwanda, has seized vast swathes of eastern DRC over the past year and is once again on the march, taking another key city, Uvira, in recent days.
Thousands have fled as civilians are again caught in the crossfire between the M23, Congolese forces and their allies.
Mirindi was living in Kamanyola near the Rwanda border when bombs started falling, destroying her house.
“Many people died, young and old. I saw corpses as we fled, jumping over some of them. I decided to cross into Rwanda with the rest,” she said.
Trump hosted the presidents of Rwanda and the DRC, Paul Kagame and Felix Tshisekedi, on December 4 for an agreement aimed at ending the conflict, but the new offensive was already underway even as they met.
“It’s clear there is no understanding between Kagame and Tshisekedi. If they don’t reach an understanding, war will go on,” said Thomas Mutabazi, 67, in the refugee camp.
“Bombs were raining down on us from different directions, some from FARDC (Congolese army) and Burundian soldiers, some from M23 as they returned fire,” he said.
Burundi has sent troops to help the DRC and finds itself increasingly threatened as the M23 takes towns and villages along its border.
