Mapping Report > Section I. Most serious violations > CHAPTER II. First Congo War > B. Attacks against Hutu refugees > 1. South Kivu > Kalehe territory
After the capture of Bukavu by the AFDL/APR (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo / Rwandan Patriotic Army) troops and the destruction of the refugee camps north of the town, the survivors fled in the direction of North Kivu. They either passed through Kahuzi-Biega National Park (towards Bunyakiri/Hombo) or Nyabibwe, on the Goma road. However, the refugees who travelled via Nyabibwe were caught between AFDL/APR troops arriving from Goma and Bukavu, and did not reach North Kivu.
- Towards mid-November 1996, ex-FAR/Interahamwe units allegedly killed an unknown number of refugees in Nyabibwe village. Most of the victims were sick, elderly or physically disabled people who no longer had the strength to escape. The ex-FAR/Interahamwe killed them by firing rockets at the house and the containers in which some of them were shut away. Others were burned alive when the vehicles they were in were set on fire. Some of these victims are alleged to have asked to be killed for fear of falling into the hands of the AFDL/APR. However, the Mapping Team was not able to confirm this claim.208
Most of the refugees who were trapped at Nyabibwe tried to reach Bunyakiri and Hombo via the Hauts Plateaux of Kalehe. One group moved into the makeshift camps at Shanje and Numbi. Pursued by the AFDL/APR soldiers, many refugees were killed in these makeshift camps and at Chebumba and Lumbishi in the Kalehe territory. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:
- On 21 November 1996, units of the AFDL/APR killed several hundred refugees and injured hundreds more in their makeshift camp at Shanje and in and around the Rukiga bamboo forest in the Kalehe territory. Some of the victims were shot, or killed by shrapnel or rockets. Others, including many elderly people, the sick and children, were killed along the roadside. This second group of victims were the survivors of the attack on the camp. The soldiers, who had asked them toassemble and march as a column towards Rwanda, opened fire on them along the way.209
- On 22 November 1996, AFDL/APR units killed an unknown number of refugee survivors from the Shanje camp at Lumbishi.210
Most of the Shanje survivors fled via the Rukiga bamboo forest. At the village of Hombo, they joined the survivors of the Kashusha/INERA camp, who were trying to reach North Kivu by travelling through the Kahuzi-Biega National Park.
- Around 2 November and 4 November 1996, in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, AFDL/APR units allegedly killed an unknown number of refugees.
208 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, March–April 2009; The Guardian, “Truth buried in Congo’s killing fields”, 19 July 1997, p.2.
209 Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team in 1997/1998; Ospiti/Peacelink, “Les violations des droits de l’homme dans le territoire contrôlé par l’AFDL”, undated, p.4; New York Times, “Refugees Tell of Youths Killed on March Back to Rwanda”, 30 November 1996; Benoit Rugumaho, L’hécatombe des réfugiés rwandais dans l’ex-Zaïre, témoignage d’un survivant, L’Harmattan, 2004, p.7.
210 Witness accounts gathered by the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team in 1997/1998; ICHRDD & ASADHO, International Non-Governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the DRC – Former Zaïre – 1996-1997, 1998, pp.14–15, 27, 51.
