Mapping Report > Section I. Most serious violations > CHAPTER II. First Congo War > B. Attacks against Hutu refugees > 3. Maniema

From late 1996, the Zairian Government massed its forces in Kindu and Kisangani with a view to launching a counter-offensive in the Kivu provinces. The first refugees arrived in Maniema province in early 1997 from the Walikale territory in North Kivu. They headed first towards the town of Kisangani but were stopped by the FAZ and rerouted to the Tingi-Tingi site, seven kilometres from Lubutu, near an airfield. Over the weeks that followed, almost 120,000 refugees settled in a makeshift camp at Tingi-Tingi. In the meantime, 40,000 other Rwandan Hutus, including many ex-FAR/Interahamwe, arrived in the village of Amisi, seventy kilometres east of Tingi-Tingi. From the start of 1997, the ex-FAR/Interahamwe used the Tingi-Tingi camp as a recruitment and training base with a view to leading a joint counter-offensive with the FAZ against the AFDL/APR troops. The FAZ and the ex-FAR/Interahamwe began to work in very close coordination with one another. The FAZ also provided the ex-FAR/Interahamwe with arms, munitions and uniforms in particular.

In January 1997, violent clashes took place between the AFDL/APR soldiers and the ex-FAR/Interahamwe for several weeks at the Osso bridge, at the border between North Kivu and Maniema province. On 7 February, after violent fighting in the village of Mungele, AFDL/APR troops took the Amisi camp. Most of the camp’s population managed to escape in the direction of Lubutu and settled by the Tingi-Tingi camp. The final skirmishes between the AFDL/APR and the ex-FAR/Interahamwe took place in the village of Mukwanyama, eighteen kilometres from Tingi-Tingi. After this time, the fighting virtually ceased and the ex-FAR/Interahamwe fled in all different directions. Some dignitaries of the old Rwandan regime and refugees who could afford the price of the ticket (USD 800) booked seats onboard commercial aircraft that landed specially at Tingi-Tingi and left for Nairobi. In the evening of 28 February, the refugees, after hearing that the AFDL/APR troops were ten kilometres from Tingi-Tingi, left the camp and headed towards Lubutu. However, they were blocked until the next morning by the FAZ at the bridge over the Lubilinga River, commonly known as “Lubutu Bridge”. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• On the morning of 1 March 1997, AFDL/APR units entered the Tingi-Tingi camp and indiscriminately killed its remaining occupants. Although most of the refugees had already left the camp, several hundred of them remained, including many sick people who were being treated in the dispensary and unaccompanied minors. According to witnesses, the AFDL/APR troops are thought to have killed most of the victims with knives. The bodies were then buried in several mass graves by volunteers from the Lubutu Red Cross.²⁶⁴

• In the afternoon of 1 March 1997, AFDL/APR units opened fire on refugees at the rear of the column fleeing towards Lubutu and killed several dozen of them. On the same day, AFDL/APR soldiers shot dead several hundred refugees who were waiting to cross the bridge over the Lubilinga River. Many refugees drowned when they jumped into the river. Others were crushed underfoot by the crowd in the ensuing panic. On 2 March, the AFDL/APR soldiers ordered the people of Lubutu to bury the victims, but most of the bodies were thrown into the river.²⁶⁵

On 27 February 1997, AFDL/APR troops entered the town of Kindu, which had been deserted by the FAZ. The refugees continued to head towards Lodja (westwards) or Kasongo (southwards). Previously, a third group, which was much smaller in number, had joined the refugees at the Tingi-Tingi camp via the Punia road. In this context, the Mapping Team documented the following alleged incidents:

• On 1 March 1997, AFDL/APR units killed 11 Rwandan Hutu refugees belonging to religious orders on the Kindu road, around twenty kilometres from Kalima, in the Pangi territory. The victims, eight priests and three nuns, had been refugees in South Kivu since 1994. They had found refuge in the parish of Kalima since 22 February. Having captured the town on 23 February, the AFDL/APR troops told the priests and the nuns to follow them on the pretext of returning them to Rwanda. On 1 March, they boarded a minibus sent by the soldiers. During the evening, the soldiers beat them to death with sticks. The bodies of the victims were buried at the scene.²⁶⁶

• In March 1997, AFDL/APR units killed some 200 refugees in the territories of Pangi and Kasongo. The victims were for the mostly survivors of the massacres committed in the Shabunda territory in South Kivu. In the refugee camp opened near Kalima Airport, in the Pangi territory, soldiers killed at least 20 people, mainly women and children who were awaiting the arrival of food aid supplied by UNHCR. In the town of Kalima, soldiers searched houses, executed the refugees who were hiding there and beat Zairians who had allowed them into their homes. The soldiers then killed refugees all the way along the road between Kalima and Kindu, in particular in the villages of Kingombe Mungembe, Mumbuza, Kenye and Idombo. The bodies of the victims remained on the road for several days before being buried by local people. In the weeks that followed, the soldiers continued to hunt down refugees in the Kasongo territory. They killed a large number of them in the villages of Kisanji, Sengaluji and Karubenda. Most of the survivors ran off into the forest. Witnesses estimate having seen at least 165 bodies, but in all likelihood the total number of victims is far in excess of this figure.²⁶⁷

Although there were no more clashes between the ex-FAR/Interahamwe/FAZ and the AFDL/APR troops, the massacres of refugees continued in the weeks that followed the fall of Tingi-Tingi. The refugees apprehended by AFDL/APR soldiers based in Lubutu were led to a site called Golgotha, three kilometres from Lubutu, where they were systematically executed.

• On 14 March 1997, during a joint mission, UN organisations and NGOs found around 2,000 refugee survivors of the recent massacres wandering around the Tingi-Tingi and Amisi camps. Until the official closure of these camps on 2 April, the AFDL/APR soldiers deliberately blocked all humanitarian, health and medical aid efforts destined for the survivors. MSF reported that during this period it had been almost impossible to provide refugees with medical care because the AFDL authorities had forbidden or delayed aid efforts for security reasons. For want of humanitarian and medical aid during the three weeks that followed the capture of the camp, at least 216 refugees died at Tingi-Tingi.²⁶⁸