Fighting in eastern DRC kills about 7,000 people since January, PM says
More than 7,000 people have been killed in fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since last month, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa says, with a 'significant' number of civilians among the dead.
Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Switzerland on Monday, Suminwa warned that 'the security situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels'.
About 3,000 deaths were reported in Goma, the capital of the eastern DRC's North Kivu province, the prime minister said.
She added that more than 2,500 bodies were buried without being identified while another 1,500 were still in morgues.
'There is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead,' Suminwa said.
Since January, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group has captured swaths of the eastern DRC, including the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province.
The group's rapid offensive has prompted concern from world leaders, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who recently warned that the fighting could 'push the entire region over the precipice'.
Rwanda has rejected allegations from the DRC, the UN and Western governments that it supports the rebels with weapons and troops.
During Monday's address in Geneva, Suminwa urged the world to act and to impose 'dissuasive sanctions' on Rwanda amid mass displacement and reports of summary executions.
'It is impossible to describe the screams and cries of millions of victims of this conflict,' she said.
Guterres also told the Human Rights Council that the situation in the country was 'a deadly whirlwind of violence and horrifying human rights abuses'.
'The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected,' the UN chief said. 'As more cities fall, the risk of a regional war rises. It's time to silence the guns.'
Rebel fighters took control of Bukavu just over a week ago after first capturing Goma last month.
About 40,000 people have fled the violence to neighbouring Burundi over a two-week span, the UN said on Friday.
The M23 is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of the eastern DRC's trillions of dollars in mineral wealth.
The rebels are supported by about 4,000 soldiers from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Al Jazeera
UN warns of surge in acute malnutrition among Gaza's young children
More than 2,700 children below the age of five in Gaza have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition, marking a steep increase in the number of children suffering from the serious medical condition since screening in February, the United Nations reports. Of almost 47,000 under-fives screened for malnutrition in the second half of May, 5.8 percent (or 2,733 children) were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition, 'almost triple the proportion of children diagnosed with malnutrition' three months earlier, the UN said on Thursday. The number of children with severe acute malnutrition requiring admission to hospital also increased by around double in May compared with earlier months, according to the report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). According to data from the Nutrition Cluster cited by OCHA, more than 16,500 children below the age of five have been detected and treated for severe acute malnutrition in Gaza since January, including 141 children with complications requiring hospitalisation. Despite the increase in children suffering serious malnutrition and requiring hospitalisation, 'there are currently only four stabilisation centres for the treatment of [severe acute malnutrition] with medical complications in the Gaza Strip,' the OCHA report states. 'Stabilisation centres in North Gaza and Rafah have been forced to suspend operations, leaving children in these areas without access to lifesaving treatment,' it adds. The UN's latest warning on the health of young children in Gaza comes as the Palestinian territory's entire population deals with starvation, and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the enclave's 'health system is collapsing'. Issuing an appeal for the 'urgent protection' of two of Gaza's last remaining hospitals, the WHO said the 'Nasser Medical Complex, the most important referral hospital left in Gaza, and Al-Amal Hospital are at risk of becoming non-functional'. 'The relentless and systematic decimation of hospitals in Gaza has been going on for too long. It must end immediately,' the WHO said in a statement. 'WHO calls for urgent protection of Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital to ensure they remain accessible, functional and safe from attacks and hostilities,' it said. 'Patients seeking refuge and care to save their lives must not risk losing them trying to reach hospitals.' UN experts, medical officials in Gaza, as well as medical charities, have long accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting health workers and medical facilities in Gaza in what has been described as a deliberate attempt to make conditions of life unliveable for the Palestinian population in the Strip. WHO calls for urgent protection of Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital in the Gaza Strip WHO warns that the #Gaza Strip's health system is collapsing, with Nasser Medical Complex, the most important referral hospital left in Gaza, and Al-Amal Hospital at risk of becoming… — World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) June 5, 2025
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Pattern of defiance: Israel expands settlements in face of Western pressure
Israel's international allies are growing louder in their condemnation of its war on Gaza and its continued construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. United Nations experts, human rights groups and legal scholars have all previously told Al Jazeera that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and committing abuses that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank. And yet less than two weeks after receiving a stern warning from its Western allies, Israel approved 22 illegal settlements in the West Bank, amounting to what has been described as the largest land grab since Israeli and Palestinian leaders inked the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. 'Israel is all about showing [the world] who calls the shots. They are saying … you can condemn us all you want, but in the end, you will bow down to us and not the other way around,' said Diana Buttu, a legal scholar and political analyst focused on Israel and Palestine. The Oslo Accords were ostensibly aimed at creating a Palestinian state, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital. However, in practice, Israel has continued to expand illegal settlements and render the two-state solution impossible, analysts told Al Jazeera. Israel has often announced the building of new illegal settlements in response to signals of support for Palestinian statehood from the UN or its allies. In 2012, Israel went so far as to approve 3,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank after the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the entity created out of the Oslo Accords to govern swaths of the West Bank – was granted non-member observer status in the UN General Assembly. Last year, Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, warned that a new illegal settlement would be built for every country that recognises a Palestinian state. The announcement came after Spain, Norway, and Ireland took the symbolic step in May 2024. 'I certainly think there is a pattern where Israel responds to pressure regarding its occupation – or anything else – by announcing settler expansion,' said Omar Rahman, an expert focused on Israel and Palestine for the Middle East Council for Global Affairs. 'We see that pattern repeated over and over again,' he told Al Jazeera. As global pressure mounts against Israel's war on Gaza, Israel has continued to test the patience of its allies. On May 21, Israeli troops fired warning shots at a group of European, Asian and Arab diplomats who were on an official mission to assess the humanitarian crisis in Jenin refugee camp, which has been subjected to a months-long attack and siege by the Israeli army since the start of the year. 'I don't know where the red line is. It is clear that there is no red line,' said Buttu. After Zionist militias ethnically cleansed some 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the state of Israel in 1948 – an event referred to as the 'Nakba' or catastrophe – Israel has increasingly annexed and occupied the little that remains of Palestinian land. Annexation of the occupied West Bank has accelerated in recent years thanks to far-right settlers who occupy positions in the Israeli government, said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. He believes Israel was always planning to approve the 22 illegal settlements irrespective of the joint statement issued by France, the UK and Canada, as it fit in with the state's ultimate goal of expanding Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank. 'Nobody can really think that if those countries didn't issue an announcement that [further] annexation wasn't going to happen. Of course, it was going to happen,' he told Al Jazeera. Rahman, from the Middle East Council, believes Israel's tactic of announcing pre-planned settlement expansion in the face of Western pressure simply aims to dissuade its allies from taking concrete action. He suspects Canada, the UK and France will likely not slap on targeted sanctions against Israeli officials, as they have threatened to do, instead using the argument that any moves against Israel will lead to a backlash against Palestinians. '[Canada, UK and France] may say they are acting for the preservation of the two-state solution by not doing anything to save the two-state solution,' Rahman told Al Jazeera. Analysts believe that sanctions on Israel would be the only way to rescue the two-state solution and end Israel's war on Gaza, but accept that comprehensive sanctions against the Israeli state would still be unlikely at this stage. Instead, Western countries like Canada, France and the UK may target sanctions at the far-right ministers most associated with pro-settler policies, Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. 'These men … are trying to jam in everything they can do now because they know there is no guarantee they will maintain their positions of power indefinitely,' Elgindy told Al Jazeera. Buttu fears that European countries will merely resort to more symbolic measures such as 'recognising Palestine', which will have little impact on the ground. 'By the time everyone gets around to recognising Palestine, there won't be any land [for Palestinians] left,' she told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Al Jazeera
‘You are not alone', diplomat tells Palestinians after UN vote
NewsFeed 'You are not alone', diplomat tells Palestinians after UN vote After the US again blocked a UN resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza, one diplomat said the majority support at the Security Council was a message of solidarity to the Palestinian people.
