Mapping Report > Section I. Most serious violations > CHAPTER II. First Congo War > B. Attacks against Hutu refugees > 2. North Kivu > Goma to Rutshuru road

As in South Kivu, infiltrated units from Rwanda attacked the refugee camps on the Rutshuru road on several occasions, even before the hostilities officially began.

• On the evening of 27 June 1996, an infiltrated group from Rwanda allegedly killed three refugees, two soldiers from the CZSC (Contingent zaïrois pour la sécurité des camps)²²¹ and three Red Cross wardens during an attack on the Kibumba refugee camp in the Nyiragongo territory.²²²

From mid-October 1996 onwards, infiltrations from Rwanda intensified and AFDL/APR soldiers began to fire sporadically at the three camps along the Goma to Rutshuru road, with heavy and light weapons.²²³ The Kibumba camp, twenty-five kilometres north of Goma, was the first to fall.

• In the night of 25 October to 26 October 1996, AFDL/APR soldiers bombarded the Kibumba camp with heavy weapons, allegedly killing an unknown number of refugees and destroying the camp’s hospital. Around 194,000 refugees fled Kibumba and headed towards the Mugunga camp.²²⁴

The Katale camp was also attacked in the night of 25 October to 26 October 1996 by the AFDL/APR, but FAZ/CZSC soldiers and ex-FAR/Interahamwe units drove back the attackers.

• On 26 October 1996, AFDL/APR soldiers attacked the Katale camp with heavy weapons, allegedly killing several dozen refugees and a Zairian soldier from the CZSC (Contingent zaïrois pour la sécurité des camps). They also reportedly killed an unknown number of refugees with cold weapons.²²⁵

After violent clashes with FAZ soldiers and ex-FAR/Interahamwe units from the Katale refugee camp who had come in as reinforcements, the AFDL/APR soldiers took control of the FAZ military camp at Rumangabo, between Goma and Rutshuru, close to the Rwandan border. On 30 October, most of the refugees in the Katale and Kahindo camps, which were close to the military camp, began to leave. As the AFDL/APR troops had cut off the road to Goma, some of the refugees headed in the direction of Masisi via Tongo, while others set about reaching the Mugunga camp through the Virunga National Park.²²⁶ Other refugees remained in the camps.

• On 31 October 1996, AFDL/APR soldiers allegedly killed several hundred refugees who were still in the Kahindo and Katale camps. The Special Rapporteur on the question of the violation of human rights in Zaire, Roberto Garretón, who visited the scene several months later, estimated that there were 143 victims at the Katale camp and between 100 and 200 victims at the Kahindo camp.²²⁷

In the first week after the AFDL/APR soldiers’ offensive in North Kivu, a small number of refugees decided to return to Rwanda. According to UNHCR, around 900 refugees crossed the border at Mutura between 26 October and 31 October 1996.²²⁸ The physical and psychological pressures to which the refugees were subjected by the ex-FAR/Interahamwe partly explain their reluctance to re-enter Rwanda. However, their refusal to return was also tied to the risks the refugees ran when they volunteered themselves to the AFDL/APR soldiers for their repatriation. Indeed, on several occasions the AFDL/APR soldiers allegedly killed refugees who had requested their help to return to the country.

It was impossible to determine the number of refugees killed by AFDL/APR soldiers in the attacks on the camps along the Goma to Rutshuru road. Figures released by the Équipe d’urgence de la biodiversité (EUB), a local NGO which assisted in the burial of the victims’ bodies to prevent possible epidemics in the region, along with the Association des volontaires du Zaïre (ASVOZA) and the Zairian Red Cross, nonetheless provide an idea of the scale of the killings. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• From 2 November to 30 November 1996, the people of Kibumba buried 2,087 bodies. Between 30 November 1996 and 26 January 1997, EUB buried 1,919 bodies in and around the Kibumba camp.²²⁹
• Between 1 December and 25 December 1996, EUB buried 281 bodies in the Kahindo camp. Some of the bodies were found in the public latrines. Many of the victims’ hands were bound.²³⁰
• Between 1 December 1996 and 18 January 1997, EUB buried 970 bodies in the Katale camp. Many bodies were found in the public latrines.²³¹

By 1 November 1996, all of the refugee camps between Goma and Rutshuru had been dismantled. The survivors of Kibumba found themselves near the Mugunga camp. The survivors of Kahindo and Katale were scattered across the Virunga National Park. As they tried to escape the AFDL/APR interception teams sent into the Virunga National Park, many refugees wandered into the forest for weeks on end and died of thirst due to the lack of drinking water in the lava field that covered the Park at this point. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• In November 1996, AFDL/APR soldiers killed an unknown number of survivors from the Kahindo and Katale camps at checkpoints set up between the Mount Nyiragongo volcano and the Mugunga camp. The survivors of Kahindo and Katale who survived this pursuit were the first to report that the AFDL/APR troops sorted the refugees they arrested at the exit of the Park according to their age and their sex and systematically executed the adult males.²³²
• In November and December 1996, AFDL/APR units killed an unknown number of refugees who had resettled in makeshift camps in the Virunga National Park.²³³

The killings around the former camps of Katale, Kahindo and Kibumba and in the Virunga National Park continued for several months.²³⁴ In February 1997, one witness recounted how bodies of the recently deceased were found each morning by the local people on the site of the former Kibumba refugee camp.²³⁵

• On 11 April 1997, AFDL/APR soldiers allegedly killed several hundred refugees at a place called Mwaro, in the forest near the village of Kibumba. The victims, who were trying to return to Rwanda, had been intercepted on 9 April by AFDL/APR soldiers near the village of Kibumba. They were imprisoned in a mosque not far from the Kibumba Institute and in a former farm building, and then killed by the soldiers.²³⁶