New York, USA, April 3, 2024 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/-As insecurity reaches some of the most alarming levels in recent years in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Haut – United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said Tuesday he feared that “the enjoyment of human rights in the country would come to a sudden halt.”
“Since our last update to the Council in October, the pervasive armed conflict, particularly in the east of the country, has continued to take a heavy human toll. The absence of state authority over large swaths of territory has also paved the way for brutal levels of violence and attacks,” Türk said in a video statement during an interactive dialogue before the United Nations Human Rights Council, Tuesday, in Geneva.
mountain of challenges
He observed that insecurity is fueled by a seemingly impassable mountain of challenges: from large-scale corruption, to the frantic race among multiple parties to gain control and exploit the country’s natural resource wealth, to violent ongoing land conflicts.
The human rights chief also said he was “extremely concerned that the conflict and violence in the DRC is spreading throughout the region, as well as the active involvement of other regional actors in the east of the DRC”, estimating that “the cost of this situation for the populations is catastrophic”.
Between October 1, 2023 and March 15, 2024, the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office documented 2,110 human rights violations and abuses across the DRC. Of these, 59% were committed by armed groups, and they include summary executions and conflict-related sexual violence.
Nearly half of these violations and abuses took place in North Kivu province, where violence and tensions have reached a critical stage. The armed conflict between the M23 armed group and the Congolese army (FARDC) intensified and extended beyond Rutshuru to the territory of Masisi. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma, and further north into South Kivu province. According to humanitarian sources, this conflict has displaced more than 2.5 million people in North Kivu between February 2022 and January 2024.
“Women and girls are, once once more, particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation, particularly in and around IDP camps,” said Mr. Turk.
Summary executions
The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office reports that since October, 156 people have been summarily executed by the M23. The M23 also sexually abused 30 women and 12 children, and kidnapped 127 civilians, including forcibly conscripting them into combat. These figures do not represent the full extent of abuse. “Many of these serious human rights violations might amount to atrocity crimes, and the alleged perpetrators and their accomplices must be held to account,” said the UN human rights chief.
During this same period, the Office documented that the Congolese army or its proxies were responsible for violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, including extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detentions. and destruction of private property. On several occasions, they attacked positions of the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO).
Disengagement from MONUSCO
As MONUSCO begins its disengagement from the country this year in accordance with the agreement concluded between the Congolese government and the United Nations, Volker Türk urged the authorities to assume their responsibility for the protection of civilians. “Without a rapid strengthening of national armed forces in areas where populations depended on MONUSCO, the security vacuum might be filled by armed groups, with terrible consequences for civilians,” he warned.
“The human tragedy in the DRC will never be resolved by military action alone. It is time to invest in dialogue. It is time to invest in restoring – and rebuilding – the rule of law. And it is time to invest in peace,” he added, estimating that the Nairobi and Luanda processes “have the potential to silence the guns, guarantee better protection of civilians and ensure a sustainable development “.
According to him, it is “essential that these two processes are anchored in human rights, in order to fight once morest impunity and guarantee the victims’ right to truth, justice, reparation and respect for human rights and guarantees of non-repetition.
The UN human rights chief also insisted that the current deployment of bilateral and regional military forces aimed at enforcing peace must be done in strict compliance with international human rights and humanitarian law standards and clarified that his office is ready to contribute.
Mr. Türk welcomed the progress made by the DRC in the fight once morest impunity. He said the fact that last year 599 people were brought to justice for human rights violations and abuses by military courts was an “encouraging step” and he strongly encouraged the continuation of these efforts.
He expressed concern, however, that the government had lifted the moratorium on the death penalty and called on the authorities to review their position. According to him, efforts to use transitional justice mechanisms to help the country confront past crimes and violations should be intensified.
Transitional justice
For their part, Bessolé René Bagoro and Marie-Thérèse Keita-Bocom, from the team of international experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo, invited the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “to redouble its efforts efforts to provide more resources for the implementation of the transitional justice strategy” in the context of the disengagement of MONUSCO.
They also invited the actors concerned to redouble their efforts to implement this strategy “in order to give maximum chances to the protection of human rights, reconciliation and peace”.
The experts notably invited the armed groups “to immediately cease their belligerent activities”, the government authorities “to continue to promote, in addition to security, all other aspects of transitional justice”, and the international community “to bring a particular attention to the concerns and interests of the Congolese population.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of UN NEWS.
Source : African Media Agency (AMA)
2024-04-03 11:10:40
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