Mapping Report > Section I. Most serious violations > CHAPTER II. First Congo War > C. Attacks against other civilian populations > North Kivu > Masisi

• On the evening of 6 November 1996, in the villages of Tebero and Njango, “Hutu armed units”³⁵¹ opened fire, threw grenades and fired rockets at trucks transporting several hundred civilians, most of them of Nande ethnic origin. On the morning of 7 November, armed units massacred survivors and systematically robbed the passengers before setting fire to the vehicles. According to some sources, 760 bodies were buried in three mass graves. The victims had left Goma on 6 November and were trying to reach the north of the province by road. The precise motive behind this massacre has not been determined.³⁵²

• Towards mid-November 1996, fleeing ex-FAR/Interahamwe killed between five and eleven civilians in the village of Ngungu.³⁵³

• On 5 December 1996, elements of the AFDL/APR killed at least 97 people in the village of Matanda. The majority of the victims were Hutu refugees and Hutu Banyarwanda.³⁵⁴

• On 7 December 1996, elements of the AFDL/APR killed around 310 civilians, including a large number of women and children, in the village of Kinigi in the Masisi territory. The soldiers had accused the local people, most of them Hutu Banyarwanda, of sheltering ex-FAR/Interahamwe. When they arrived, however, the ex-FAR/Interahamwe had already left the village. First, the soldiers tried to reassure civilians by telling them that they had nothing to fear. They then asked them to assemble in several buildings, including the Adventist church and the Rubona primary school, to attend a meeting. In the afternoon, the AFDL/APR soldiers entered the buildings and killed the villagers with hoes and hatchets to the head. They also killed some civilians in their homes. The bodies were buried at Kinigi in several mass graves.³⁵⁵

• On 9 December 1996, elements of the AFDL/APR killed around 280 civilians in the village of Katoyi, in the south-west of the Masisi territory. When they arrived, the soldiers asked the tribal chief to gather the people together for a meeting. They then surrounded the civilians who had gathered in the village centre and bound them before killing them with cold weapons and small axes. Those who tried to escape were shot dead. The victims included a large number of women and children, as well as Rwandan refugees.³⁵⁶

• Around 23 December 1996, elements of the AFDL/APR killed over 460 Hutu Banyarwanda civilians, mostly men, in the village of Kausa, near the Nyamitaba locality. When they arrived, the soldiers explained that they were only looking for the Interahamwe and that they had come to reconcile the communities. They then asked the people to convene in the village square to attend a meeting. They then fired shots and bound the civilians. Some were locked in buildings, while others were led into the fields around the village. Still others were led on to the Kanyabihanga hill. Most of the victims were killed with hammer blows. Those who tried to escape were shot dead. After the massacre, the soldiers raped many women. A large number of women and children, as well as Rwandan refugee survivors of the Mugunga camp, were among the victims.³⁵⁷

• On 24 December or 25 December 1996, elements of the AFDL/APR from Kilolirwe killed around 160 civilians in the Nyakariba parish, in the Masisi territory. Upon their arrival in the village, the soldiers ordered the people of Nyamitaba and Nyakariba to gather in the parish of Nyakariba to attend a meeting. The victims were bound before being killed with hammer blows to the head. Those who tried to escape were shot dead. At least one priest was killed in this attack. The bodies of the victims were thrown into several mass graves located near the dispensary, the parish church and a place known as Camp Nord. In 1997, AFDL/APR soldiers returned to dig up the remains, some of which were burned at the scene.³⁵⁸

• From late 1996 and over the course of the months that followed, elements of the AFDL/APR based on the Mufunzi hill kidnapped and killed an unknown number of civilians in the hills around Ngungu. The soldiers arrested civilians suspected of collaborating with Hutu militiamen at checkpoints they had set up on the main routes around the area. They also carried out frequent raids on the villages of Ngungu, Murambi, Kashovu, Karangara, Mumba, Kibabi and Nyambisi. Different sources report the number of victims as anywhere between one dozen and several hundred. The region’s inhabitants named the Mufunzi hill Nyabihanga, which means “place of the skulls” in Kinyarwanda.³⁵⁹

• At the end of December 1996, AFDL/APR soldiers killed between 16 and 22 people and set fire to houses in the village of Muheto, ten kilometres from Nyakariba. In early 1997, they returned to Muheto and killed 16 civilians.³⁶⁰

• On 9 January 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR killed between 107 and 134 civilians in the village of Bitonga in the Masisi territory. Arriving in the village very early in the morning, the soldiers accused the local people, most of them Hutu Banyarwanda, of collaborating with ex-FAR/Interahamwe. The soldiers then opened fire and threw grenades at the civilians.³⁶¹

• Around 20 January 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR killed 14 members of the same family, including children, in a house in Kanyangote village, near the Matanda parish.³⁶²
• On 25 January 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR killed at least 20 Hutu Banyarwanda civilians in the village of Kalangala. The soldiers had asked the villagers to convene in order to attend a meeting. They then surrounded them and opened fire.³⁶³
• On 23 February 1997, during military operations targeting Hutu armed units operating in the region, AFDL/APR soldiers killed over one hundred civilians, most of them Hutu Banyarwanda, in the village of Rubaya. Some of the victims were shot dead. Others were killed with cold weapons or burned alive in their homes. A large number of women and children were among the victims.³⁶⁴
• Towards 23 February 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR killed an unknown number of civilians in the village of Nambi. The soldiers arrived in the village while the cattle market was being held and accused certain civilians of stealing cattle. They then kidnapped between 30 and 50 civilians. That evening shots were heard, and the next day 15 bodies, including those of two women, were found on the Kayonde hill. To date, the bodies of the other victims have never been found.³⁶⁵
• In April 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR from Mushake, Kilolirwe and Ruvunda killed an unknown number of civilians in the village of Chandarama. The victims were shot dead or killed with blows of hoes. According to one source, only the men are thought to have been killed. The residents of the villages from which the victims came buried the bodies at a number of locations, most of them near the Kinyabibuga River.³⁶⁶
• Around 16 April 1997, elements of the AFDL/APR massacred around one hundred civilians at Mweso. The victims, most of them Hutu Banyarwanda, were on their way to the Kabizo market when the soldiers, based on the Kilumbu hill, requested their attendance at a public meeting. Some of the victims were then shot dead. Others were burned alive in a house. Several bodies were dumped in the Mweso River. Others were buried in a mass grave behind the Mweso parish.³⁶⁷

• On 9 July 1997, FAC/APR³⁶⁸ units killed 17 civilians and looted the village of Ruzirantaka. The soldiers had come to raid the house of the school principal, but during the raid an argument broke out and an AFDL/APR soldier was killed. To cover up the death vis-à-vis their superiors, the soldiers decided to create an incident and killed 16 villagers.³⁶⁹

• On 12 July 1997, a coalition between the Mayi-Mayi, Hutu armed units and members of village self-defence groups killed between 7 and 20 people, most of them Tutsi Banyarwanda, in the village of Ngungu. Following the massacre, FAC/APR units attacked and destroyed the villages of Katovu, Ufamando, Musongati, Kabingo, Rubaya, Kanyenzuki, Kibabi and Ngungu. The precise number of victims is still unknown.³⁷⁰

• Around August 1997, FAC/APR units burned alive several hundred civilians, most of them Hutu Banyarwanda, in the village of Mushangwe. After ordering local people to convene in a building to attend a meeting, the AFDL/APR soldiers set fire to the building.³⁷¹

After President Kabila came to power in Kinshasa, the alliance between the AFDL/APR and the Hunde Mayi-Mayi swiftly deteriorated. Accusing the new regime of trying to marginalise them in the new army and refusing to accept the long-term presence of APR soldiers in the two Kivu provinces, a number of Mayi-Mayi groups decided to take up the armed struggle again. On 22 July 1997, violent clashes broke out in the village of Katale, twelve kilometres from Masisi, where the AFDL/APR had a military base. On 29 July, FAC/APR soldiers received reinforcements from Goma and embarked on a combing operation in the vicinity of Masisi. During the operation, they committed many acts of violence against the predominately Hunde civilian population, whom they accused of supporting the Mayi-Mayi.

• On 29 July 1997, FAC/APR units from the Katale military camp allegedly killed around fifty civilians, including women and children, in the banana plantations and fields surrounding the village of Mutiri, next to Masisi town. The victims, who had fled the village when the soldiers arrived, were captured and bound before being shot or killed by hammer blows to the head. Killings also took place in the surrounding villages, such as Kiterire. The soldiers then headed to Nyabiondo, nineteen kilometres from Masisi. On the way, they killed several dozen civilians and pillaged and torched at least a dozen villages, including Kanii, Masisi, Bulwa, Buabo, Bangabo, Kihuma, Luashi, Bukombo, Kamarambo and Kinyanguto.³⁷²