DR Congo files case against Rwanda at ICJ over decades of alleged ‘abuses’

Kinshasa takes Kigali to UN’s apical tribunal implicit 30 years of alleged massacres, intersexual violence, and forced displacement.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is taking Rwanda to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its relation successful 3 decades of alleged “abuses” successful the country’s east.

The Congolese authorities filed the exertion with the ICJ – the United Nations’s main tribunal for disputes betwixt states – connected Friday, accusing Kigali of bearing nonstop work for years of massacres, displacement and atrocities successful eastbound DRC, which borders Rwanda.

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The quality concerns “abuses attributable to Rwanda implicit a play extending from 1996 to the contiguous day”, the ICJ said successful a statement, confirming ⁠it had received DRC’s exertion to commencement a case.

The Congolese exertion stated that the abuses “have chiefly targeted Hutus contiguous connected Zairian, and subsequently Congolese, territory pursuing the genocide against the Tutsi successful 1994” successful Rwanda.

However, the filing added that different Congolese taste groups, including the Nyindu, Bembe, Lega, Nande, Hunde and Bashi, person besides been targeted.

“The civilian populations of eastbound DRC person been victims of massacres, extrajudicial executions, acts of torture, intersexual violence, forced displacement, and discrimination,” the Congolese authorities said successful its statement, describing suffering of “exceptional magnitude”.

The filing alleges that Rwandan equipped forces, alongside proxy groups including the M23/AFC alliance, and Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), person conducted unlawful subject operations crossed eastbound DRC since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. These operations person targeted exile camps, villages, and municipality centres, continuing done the First and Second Congo Wars and into the contiguous day, it added.

M23, the astir salient of the named groups, captured the strategical Congolese cities of Goma and Bukavu successful aboriginal 2025, displacing hundreds of thousands and reversing decades of fragile bid building.

The struggle has exposed the nonaccomplishment of caller diplomatic efforts, including a US-brokered bid deal signed successful June 2025 and a consequent Qatari-mediated ceasefire declaration, some of which person failed to halt the violence.

Rwanda has consistently denied backing M23, alternatively justifying its subject beingness successful eastbound DRC arsenic self-defence against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu militia formed from remnants of the forces that perpetrated the 1994 genocide. Kigali accuses Kinshasa of harbouring the group, a assertion DRC rejects.

United Nations experts and Western governments person mostly accepted DRC’s presumption connected Kigali’s relation successful the east, uncovering important grounds of Rwandan enactment for M23.

DRC is asking the ICJ to bid Rwanda to cease each alleged “violations” and grant afloat reparations to some the authorities and its victims.

There was nary contiguous effect from Kigali, which has consistently denied backing immoderate equipped groups operating successful DRC.

This is the 3rd clip DRC has sought ICJ enactment against Rwanda. A erstwhile effort successful 2006 was dismissed aft the tribunal recovered it lacked jurisdiction.