Present at the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations, the Congolese head of state, Felix Tshisekedi, reiterated his accusations against Kigali for supporting the M23 rebel group, “both in terms of war material and troops. It was last Tuesday in New York.
“Despite my good will and the outstretched hand of the Congolese people for peace, some of our neighbors have found nothing better to do than to thank us with aggression, and support the armed terrorist groups that are ravaging the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is currently the case with Rwanda. Rwanda’s involvement and responsibility in the tragedy that my country and my compatriots living in the areas occupied by the Rwandan army and their M23 allies are no longer in doubt,” said the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Félix Tshisekedi also pointed out that Kigali’s forces “are occupying localities in the province of North Kivu through an armed terrorist group, the 23 March Movement, known as M23, to which [le Rwanda] provides massive support both in terms of war material and troops.
According to this statement, it was thanks to the “support of the Rwandan army” to the M23 that a helicopter of the UN mission, Monusco, was shot down last March, killing eight peacekeepers, including six Pakistanis, a Russian and a Serb, and “thus committing a war crime.
The M23 is a former Tutsi-dominated rebel group that was defeated in 2013. But since late 2021, the group has taken up arms again, spreading terror in eastern DRC.
For his part, the Rwandan president will speak on Wednesday, but it is known that the country has always denied the accusations of Kinshasa and promised to defend its territory.
