Mapping Report > Section II. Inventory of Specific Acts of Violence > CHAPTER II. Acts of violence committed against children > A. Impact of armed conflict on children
The violations listed in the first section of this report affected children and adults equally. Often suspected of supporting the enemy, the civilian population – and therefore children – paid a heavy price during the successive wars. Children were not protected in war zones and were even sometimes deliberately killed or mutilated by the parties to the conflict, often in particularly barbaric ways.
1. Children victims of widespread attacks on the civilian population
During the refugee massacres of 1996 and 1997, the AFDL/APR1194 troops allegedly killed men, women and children indiscriminately, some with hammer blows to the head.1195 From 1998, during campaigns against the civilian population, elements of the armed branch of the RCD, the ANC and the Rwandan Army (APR) reportedly attacked groups of primarily women and children and killed or mutilated them (North Kivu),1196 attacked women and children in churches (Maniema),1197 set fire to huts and houses with civilians – including children – locked inside them (Katanga)1198 and even decapitated children (Orientale Province).1199
The ex-FAR/Interahamwe also allegedly deliberately killed children, as in Équateur, for example, in April and May 1997, in retaliation for the Zairians refusal to give them food, or their bicycles in some cases.1200 In North Kivu, ALiR/FDLR1201 troops are said to have attacked entire villages killing all the inhabitants, children included.1202 They also attacked camps of internally displaced people, primarily women and children.1203
The regular armies also reportedly committed crimes against children, including, for example, the Forces armées angolaises (FAA), allied to the Kinshasa Government, in Bas-Congo in 1998,1204 and the Forces armées congolaises (FAC) in Maniema and Katanga.1205 On one occasion, FAC soldiers allegedly killed seven boys who refused to hand over their bikes.1206
In Ituri district, numerous children were horrifically killed or mutilated by armed groups, for example at Mambasa and at Nyakunde.1207 According to the report of the Special Investigation Team on the events in Mambasa, children were often the victims of acts of extreme violence. Some were reportedly cut into pieces and parts of their bodies eaten by the soldiers.1208 Pygmy children were particularly targeted due to local beliefs in their supernatural powers.1209
Children were also the victims of other violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, particularly during the indiscriminate shelling of refugee camps with heavy artillery by the AFDL/APR, such as in Kitumba, Mugunga and Katale in 19961210 or of civilian populations by the Forces armées zaïroises (FAZ) during the battle for Kenge in Bandundu1211 in 1997, or during the shelling of working class districts of Kinshasa in 1998 by the Zimbabwean Army (ZDF) or during the FAC shelling in Équateur in 1999 and 2000.1212
Places that traditionally harbour children were not respected by the warring parties. A large number of schools, hospitals, orphanages and the premises of several humanitarian organisations were the sites of massacres of children, who were rarely spared by the combatants. Thus at the end of 1995, the FAZ campaigns against the different ethnic militia in North Kivu allegedly caused a fire at a school in which the schoolchildren were burned alive.1213 In May 1997, at Wendji in Équateur, soldiers from the AFDL/APR apparently killed unaccompanied children at the offices of the local Red Cross.1214 In 1998, when the ANC/APR cut off Kinshasa’s and Bas-Congo’s main source of electricity, dozens of children died in the hospitals due to lack of care.1215 In Goma in 1998, the ex-FAR/Interahamwe/ALiR entered an orphanage and killed around ten children.1216 In 1999, as children were participating in a vaccination campaign organised by the public authorities in Masisi territory, they were killed and mutilated allegedly by ANC/APR soldiers.1217 In Ituri, patients in the Nyakunde (September 2002)1218 and Drodro (April 2003)1219 hospitals, including numerous children, were reportedly systematically killed by Lendu and Ngiti militia.
2. Children victims of ethnic violence
Children did not escape the ethnic violence that swept the different regions of the country. In 1993, several Hunde children were allegedly killed by Hutu militia.1220 In South Kivu in 1996, a number of Banyamulenge children and infants were reportedly stabbed to death during the massacres committed by armed Bembe elements, with the complicity of the FAZ.1221 In 1997, during the attacks on Rwandan Hutus and, sometimes, on Nande by AFDL/APR soldiers, children and adults were apparently killed indiscriminately, sometimes in particularly cruel ways, with blows from hatchets or with their head smashed against a wall or tree trunk, for example.1222 Others were reported burned alive in their homes, along with their families.1223 After the second war broke out, children were not spared in the persecutions of Tutsis, Banyamulenge and people of Rwandan origin that took place in government zones. At Kalemie (Katanga), Tutsi children were held with their mothers for several weeks in inhumane detention conditions.1224 In the area under the control of the RCD-Goma, ex-FAR/Interahamwe/ALiR allegedly killed a group of around ten Tutsi children in an orphanage in Goma.1225
In Ituri, against a backdrop of ethnic conflict, elements of the UPC and different Lendu and Ngiti militia reportedly systematically killed children on the basis of their ethnic belonging.1226
Attacks on refugees
During various attacks on Rwandan Hutu refugees in camps and on roadsides, members of the AFDL/APR allegedly made no distinction between armed elements and refugees, amongst whom there were numerous children. More serious still, the AFDL/APR is said to have frequently attacked camps that had already been deserted by the ex-FAR/Interahamwe and which contained the weak and the vulnerable – typically unaccompanied children, the elderly, women and the wounded.1227
At Mugunga camp in North Kivu, children and infants were shot and stabbed to death.1228 During the massacres in Chambucha and Biriko, children were killed by blows to the head from hammers and hoes.1229 In South Kivu in 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR allegedly abducted 50 child refugees whom they had found in the Lwiro health centre, and tortured them. The health centre nurses were beaten for having treated refugee children.1230 During the widespread massacres of Mboko, Kasika, Kilungutwe, Kalama and Makobola in 1998, a large number of children were killed apparently by the AFDL/APR.1231 During the Makobola II, Bangwe, Katuta, Mikunga and Kashekezi massacres that left more than 800 dead between 30 December 1998 and 2 January 1999, elements of the ANC/APR/FAB1232 are also reported to have killed numerous children.1233 In Tingi-Tingi camp at Maniema, AFDL/APR troops allegedly indiscriminately murdered the last of the camp occupants, including many unaccompanied children, with knife blows to the head.1234 During attacks in Orientale Province, children were killed alongside the adults, particularly during the attacks on Biaro and Kasese camps.1235 Even children under the protection of humanitarian organisations were not spared. At Wendji in Équateur, soldiers from the AFDL/APR reportedly entered the offices of the local Red Cross and killed unaccompanied children waiting to be repatriated.1236
3. Sexual violence committed against children
As noted in the chapter on violence against women, sexual violence was a daily reality from 1993 to 2003, and one that children also suffered. Used as an instrument of terror, on the basis of ethnicity or to torture and humiliate, sexual violence often targeted young girls and children, some no more than five years old. Contemptible beliefs and superstitions led to children being targeted for their virginity, in the conviction that sexual relations with children could cure certain diseases (HIV/AIDS) or make the perpetrator invulnerable. Children were particularly affected by slavery and sexual slavery, a practice allegedly widespread among the Mayi-Mayi, ex-FAR/Interahamwe/ALiR/FDLR, UPC, and armed Ugandan (ADF/NALU) and Burundian (CNDD-FDD and FNL) groups.1237 Girls recruited and used by all parties to the conflict as children associated with armed forces or armed groups (CAAFAG) were virtually all victims of sexual violence.1238
Sexual violence has a devastating impact on children, both in psychological and physical terms, and is a key factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS and the exclusion of children from their communities. Early pregnancy, forced abortions and stigma are all reasons why young survivors of sexual violence never recover from the trauma they have suffered. Children born of rapes are often infected with the HIV/AIDS virus and rejected by their community.
4. Infant mortality
In addition to being subjected to direct attacks, children also suffered the indirect consequences of the armed conflicts. More vulnerable than adults, children more than any other group have suffered the consequences of a war that has devastated the country. Repeated displacements, malnutrition and disease affected children to such an extent that, in 2001, the International Rescue Committee concluded that those under the age of five accounted for one-third of the civilian deaths caused by the conflicts in eastern DRC between August 1998 and May 2000.1239 The infant mortality rate was particularly high during the persecution of Kasaiens in 1993, especially during their forced deportation under inhumane conditions. In South Kivu, in 2003, Oxfam estimated that, in some regions, one-quarter of all children were dying before their fifth birthday.1240 UNICEF reports that these terrible statistics make the DRC one of the three most dangerous countries in the world in which to be born. In 2006, more children under the age of five were dying each year in the DRC than in China, despite the Chinese population being 23 times larger than the Congolese.1241
5. Anti-personnel mines1242
When conflict dies down, children are often the main victims of anti-personnel mines left in the area by combatants. In the DRC, the different armed groups and forces used mines at different times, mainly in the east, in Équateur Province, and along the frontlines that divided the country in two from north-west to south-east. According to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC), unexploded mines and artillery caused the deaths of at least 1,798 people in the DRC between 1996 and April 2006, including many children.1243
1194 As noted in Section I, given the heavy presence of APR soldiers among the troops and commanding officers of the AFDL – a reality later recognised by the Rwandan authorities – and the great difficulty noted by the witnesses questioned by the Mapping Team in distinguishing between members of the AFDL and the APR on the ground, reference will be made to the armed elements of the AFDL and soldiers of the APR engaged in operations in Zaire between October 1996 and June 1997 using the acronym AFDL/APR. When several sources attest to the heavy presence of Ugandan soldiers under cover of the AFDL in certain regions (as in some districts of Orientale Province), or of the Forces armées burundaises (as in some territories of South Kivu), the acronyms AFDL/APR/UPDF, AFDL/APR/FAB or AFDL/UPDF and AFDL/FAB may also be used.
1195 Particularly during the October 1996 massacres in Rutshuru territory (Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, February and March 2009), during the massacres around Mutiri village on 29 July 1997 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, December 2008 and January 2009); APREDECI, “L’Apocalypse au Nord-Kivu”, October 1997, p 56-57).
1196 Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, December 2008; AI, Killing Human Decency, 2000.
1197 Particularly during the massacre at Songwe village on 25 September 2002 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, Maniema, March 2009).
1198 Particularly during the massacre at Mazembe on 3 July 1999 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, Katanga, January-March 2009) and during the Makele massacre in January 2000 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, Katanga, February 2009).
1199 On 24 October 1998, elements of the ANC/APR beheaded several children during an attack on Makoka village, where the attackers suspected a Mayi-Mayi presence. Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, January 2009.
1200 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Mbandaka and Kinshasa, February, March and April 2009; AI, “Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests”, 1999.
1201 With the start of the second war in 1998, the ex-FAR/Interahamwe and “armed Hutu elements” reorganised within the Armée de libération du Rwanda (ALiR), which was absorbed into the FDLR at the end of 2000.
1202 Massacre in and around Luke village in January 2000 (Interview with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, January 2009; Didier Kamundu Batundi, Mémoire des crimes impunis, la tragédie du Nord-Kivu, 2006).
1203 Attack on a camp of internally displaced persons at Sake in July 2000; Report of the Special Rapporteur on the DRC (A/55/403); ASADHO , Annual Report, 2000; AI, Rwandese-controlled Eastern DRC: devastating human toll, 2001; International Crisis Group, Scramble for the Congo: Anatomy of an Ugly War, 2000].
1204 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Kinzau Mvwete, Bas-Congo, March 2009; HRW, Casualties of War, 1999.
1205 Particularly in Maniema during the massacre in Demba territory in September 1999 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, Maniema, March 2009) and in Katanga during the massacre in Malemba Nkulu territory on 27 February 2002 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, Katanga, December 2008), and the massacre in Kabalo territory in March 2002 (Interview with the Mapping Team, Katanga, November 2008; document provided to the Mapping Team on 24 February 2009: Les faits saillants des incidents du territoire de Kabalo) and the massacre in Malemba Nkulu territory in May 2002 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, Katanga, December 2008).
1206 Village of Buburu: Interview with the Mapping Team, Équateur, April 2009.
1207 Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict (A/58/546 and Corr.1 and 2).
1208 See Report of the Special Investigation Team on the events in Mambasa (S/2003/674).
1209 Minority Rights Group International, “Erasing the Board: Report of the international research mission into crimes under international law committed against the Bambuti Pygmies in the eastern DRC”, 2004.
1210 Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, November 2008; Report of the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team charged with investigating serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the DRC (S/1998/581), annex; see also OIJ, Recueil de témoignages sur les crimes commis dans l’ex-Zaïre depuis octobre 1996, 1997; APREDECI, Rapport circonstanciel: novembre 1996 et ses événements, 1996.
1211 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Bandundu, February 2009.
1212 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Équateur, April 2009.
1213 ASADHO, Nord-Kivu: État d’urgence, 1996.
1214 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Équateur, March and April 2009; confidential witness statements given to the Mapping Team; Howard W. French, “Refugees From Congo Give Vivid Accounts of Killings”, New York Times, 23 September 1997.
1215 Interview with the Mapping Team, Kinshasa, April 2009; ICRC press releases dated 19 and 28 August and 9 September 1998; Report on the situation of human rights in the DRC (E/CN.4/1999/31).
1216 Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, February and March 2009; ASADHO, Annual Report 1998; SOPROP, La situation des droits de l’homme dans la ville de Goma et ses environs depuis l’éclatement de la rébellion jusqu’au 21 September 1998, 1998.
1217 Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, December 2008; AI, Killing Human Decency, 2000.
1218 Interview with the Mapping Team, Ituri, April 2009, AI, On the precipice: the deepening human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ituri, 2003; HRW, Covered in blood. Ethnically-targeted violence in northern DRC, 2003.
1219 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Ituri, March 2009; United Nations Organization Mission in the DRC, Special Report on events in Ituri (January 2002 – December 2003) [S/2004/573].
1220 Interview with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, November 2008; Mémorandum des communautés hutu et tutsi à la Commission d’enquête sur les massacres de Walikale, Masisi et Bwito (Rutshuru) en mars et avril 1993, 1993; Léon Batundi Ndasimwa, Recensement des victimes hunde des massacres et
affrontements interethniques de 1993 à nos jours, undated.
1221 Such as, for example, at Baraka, Lueba and Mboko in Fizi territory, and at Bukavu. (Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, March 2009).
1222 Massacres in the area of Chanzerwa, 7 May 1997 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, April 2009).
1223 Kazuba massacre, 13 March 1997 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, December 2008 and February 2009; CEREBA, “Rapport de mission dans le territoire de Rutshuru”, October 2005); Rubaya massacre, 23 February 1997 (Interview with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, March 2009, Didier Kamundu Batundi, Mémoire des crimes impunis, la tragédie du Nord-Kivu, 2006) .
1224 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Katanga, October 2008 and March 2009; ASADHO, RDC: Le pouvoir à tout prix. Répression systématique et impunité, 1998; AI, War against unarmed civilians, 1999; Deutsche Presse-Agentur, “Massacres of Tutsis Reported as more DRC Peace Talks Tabled”, 3 September 1998, and “Congo Rebels Bury Remains of Massacre Victims”, 10 December 1998.
1225 Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, February and March 2009; ASADHO, Annual Report, 1998; SOPROP, La situation des droits de l’homme dans la ville de Goma et ses environs depuis l’éclatement de la rébellion jusqu’au 21 septembre 1998, 1998.
1226 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Ituri, March to May 2009; HRW, Ituri: covered in blood. Ethnically targeted violence in north-eastern DR Congo, 2003.
1227 AFP, “Les volontaires de la Croix-Rouge chargés du ramassage des cadavres”, 19 November 1996.
1228 The Toronto Star, “Bloodied Corpses Litter Camp – Signs of Massacre Found in Deserted Refugee Camp”, 16 November 1996.
1229 Particularly during the massacre at Chambucha around 9 December 1996 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, November-December 2008 and April 2009; confidential documents provided to the Mapping Team) and during the Biriko massacre around 17 December 1996 (Interviews with the Mapping Team, North Kivu, November-December 2008 and April 2009; CADDHOM, ”Les atrocités commises en province du Kivu au Congo-Kinshasa (ex- Zaïre) de 1996-1998”, July 1998).
1230 Report of the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team (S/1998/581), annex; confidential documents provided in 1997/1998 to the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team; IRIN, “Emergency Update No.159 on the Great Lakes”, 26-28 April 1997; MSF, “L’échappée forcée: une stratégie brutale d’élimination à l’est du Zaïre”, April 1997.
1231 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, October, November and December 2008 – February-March 2009; see also the Ministry of Human Rights of the DRC, “Livre Blanc: La guerre d’agression en RDC: trois ans de massacres et de génocide à huis clos”, October 2001; CADDHOM Massacres de Kasika au Sud- Kivu, 1998; COJESKI, January report 1999; AI, DRC: War against unarmed civilians, 1998; Jean Migabo Kalere, Génocide au Congo? Analyse des massacres des populations civiles, 2002.
1232 Forces armées burundaises.
1233 Interviews with the Mapping Team, South Kivu, February 2009; see also Ambroise Bulambo, Mourir au Kivu, du génocide tutsi aux massacres dans l’est du Congo RCD, L’Harmattan, 2001; AI, DRC: Human dignity reduced to Zero, 2000; Proceedings instituted by the DRC against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice, 28 May 2002.
1234 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Maniema, March 2009; AI, Deadly Alliance, 1999; MSF, “L’échappée forcée: une stratégie brutale d’élimination à l’est du Zaïre”, 1997.
1235 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Orientale Province, November 2008, January-May 2009; confidential documents provided to the Secretary-General’s Investigative Team in 1997/1998; C. McGreal, “Truth Buried in Congo’s Killing Fields”, Guardian, 19 July 1997; John Pomfret, “Massacres Were a Weapon in Congo’s Civil War; Evidence Mounts of Atrocities by Kabila’s Forces”, Washington Post, 11 June 1997; IRIN, Emergency Update No.155 on the Great Lakes, 22 April 1997; IRIN, Emergency Update No.157 on the Great Lakes, 24 April 1997.
1236 Interviews with the Mapping Team, Mbandaka, March-April 2009; confidential statements made to the Mapping Team; Howard W. French, “Refugees from Congo Give Vivid Accounts of Killings”, New York Times, 23 September 1997.
1237 For more information, see the chapter on violence against women.
1238 See, for example, the transcription of hearings, ICC Lubanga (ICC 01/04 01/06), 3 February, 27 February and 6 March 2009.
1239 Report quoted in “A critical analysis of progress made and obstacles encountered in increasing protection for war-affected children” (A/55/749). The International Rescue Committee (IRC) conducted four studies into mortality rates in the DRC between 1998 and 2004. According to the IRC, from the start of the second war in August 1998 to the end of April 2004, around 3.8 million people are thought to have died as a direct or indirect consequence of the war and armed conflicts. It should be noted, however, that the methodology used by the IRC to establish the number of indirect deaths is based on epidemiological studies and estimates of demographic growth and that these have been questioned. Given its mandate, its limited time and resources, it is not for the Mapping Exercise to give an opinion on the total number of people dead or murdered due to the situation in the DRC over the period in question.
1240 Oxfam International, “The War in the DRC is at a Critical Juncture: Submission to the UN Security Council”, 25 April 2002.
1241 See www.unicef.org/french/infobycountry/media_34942.html.
1242 The DRC signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 2 May 2002, ratifying the Ottawa Treaty on 1 November 2002.
1243 See www.unicef.org/drcongo/french/humanitarian_assistance.html.
