Allegations that the AFC/M23 rebel movement killed hundreds of civilians in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu province, between July 9 and 21 have come under scrutiny, with independent investigations questioning both the evidence and the credibility of the sources behind the claims. The accusations of a massacre of Hutu farmers originate from an August 6 joint report by the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which alleged that M23 fighters killed 319 civilians, including at least 48 women and 19 children, and injured 169 others across four villages in Rutshuru. ALSO READ: M23 dismisses UN allegations of civilian killings Many victims were reportedly attacked while working in their fields during the planting season. M23 has dismissed the accusations, saying they are “unverified and politically motivated,” that they “lack factual backing, are methodologically flawed, and reflect unjustifiable bias.” ALSO READ: Rwanda slams UN allegations in 'civilian killings' report on DR Congo A discrepancy in numbers African Facts, an independent media outlet that investigates African conflicts, challenged the UN’s findings in a report published on Monday, August 11, stating there is no evidence in DR Congo linking the UN’s version of events to realities on the ground. In its report published in French, African Facts cites a UNJHRO letter sent to AFC/M23 leaders on July 28, three days before Reuters first reported on the allegations, referring to “alleged” abuses and listing 169 victims. The authors of the media report questioned how the toll jumped to 319 in the official report within days, and why the language shifted from conditional to definitive. During the alleged killings, the only public accusation came from the Collective of Victims of Rwandan Aggression (CVAR), a group with ties to the Nyatura-CMC militia, which claimed “more than 200 people perished in a cruel manner” but produced 13 images of bodies, 11 men and two women. Questionable sources The investigation found that CVAR’s leadership includes figures linked to the FDLR-founded Nyatura, an armed group accused of numerous crimes and ethnic ethnic violence against Congolese Tutsi communities, with some of its members wanted for murder, kidnapping, torture, and criminal conspiracy. Another group amplifying the allegations, the Rutshuru Territorial Youth Council (CTJR), also has close ties to CVAR. On August 3, CTJR claimed 296 executions by M23 in Binza, but when pressed for evidence, its president, Patient Twizere Sebashitsi, said, “We have all the data possible... but we cannot disclose it. It costs us a lot of money and is well guarded.” 'Invented massacre' The UN report also alleged that the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), accused of backing M23, “aided” in the killings. The Rwandan government dismissed the allegations on Monday, saying, “The gratuitous inclusion of the RDF in these allegations is unacceptable and brings into question the credibility of OHCHR and its methodology.” Rwanda’s foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, quoting the African Facts report, criticised the UN’s findings in a post on X, stating: “Thus, a gross manipulation of the CMC Nyatura, an armed group affiliated with the genocidal FDLR, is found, for obscure reasons, as an established fact in a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.” “The United Nations system, which never had the will to stop a real genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and which has unflinchingly observed a real persecution of the Congolese Tutsi for three decades, finds a way to sink further by accrediting, with incredible lightness, a ‘massacre’ invented from scratch by the very people who are guilty of atrocities in the east of DR Congo,” Nduhungirehe said. On the ground, a different picture On the ground, African Facts reports, fighting in Binza pits M23 against FDLR and Nyatura forces, who often wear civilian clothes while armed, making them difficult to distinguish from local farmers. Testimonies collected by African Facts indicate that civilians have been killed during clashes, but in far smaller numbers than the UN offices claim, and none were “executed” with machetes as alleged. African Facts also documented attacks by FDLR and Nyatura militias during the same period, including the burning of 20 houses in Kizimba on July 10 and the beheading of civilians, incidents not mentioned in the UN report or major media coverage. The credibility of the UNJHRO report, the authors said, is further undermined by its reliance on anonymous “direct testimony” without victim names, burial locations, or verifiable photographic evidence. Reuters, the first major media organisation to report the story, admitted it could not independently confirm the killings and based its coverage on the UNJHRO and one unnamed activist. The African Facts investigation concludes that while there's no verifiable evidence to support the allegations of the killings blamed on the AFC/M23, the UN offices also did not mention summary executions and other attacks by the FDLR and Nyatura militia in the region. “Neither the news agency nor the UN office have produced any material evidence to support these terrible accusations,” the authors said. “In this region, such incidents inevitably generate evidence that is generally possible to gather, cross-check, and contextualize.”
