On January 18, 2026, l’Église 37ᵉ CADC, a Banyamulenge church in Uvira, burned down for the fifth time. The first fire struck in 1996. The most recent had been in August 2025, set by Mai-Mai groups whom President Felix Tshisekedi elevated to the status of “patriots.” Reconstruction followed. Then M23 withdrew under international pressure and, within hours, both the Kinshasa-backed VDP Wazalendo militias and the flames returned. ALSO READ: Elevated to patriots: the shocking tales of the Wazalendo militia If watching the same sanctuary burn five times isn’t a pattern, nothing is. Before M23 entered Uvira in December 2025, the city hosted 20,000 Burundian troops, foreign mercenaries controlling drone strikes, 40,000 VDP Wazalendo, 5,000 of Burundi’s own brand of Interahamwe militia known as the Imbonerakure, and the Kinshasa-backed FDLR, the same genocidal militia responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. This made Uvira the second most militarised zone on earth after North Korea. These so-called state security apparatuses had a clear mandate: the enemy was the indigenous cattle-herders known as the Banyamulenge. In August 2025, VDP Wazalendo issued a ten-day ultimatum: Banyamulenge must leave or face consequences. House-to-house attacks followed, along with abductions and killings. ALSO READ: Scorched earth: FARDC shoots down humanitarian aircraft on Independence Day Rwanda’s permanent representative to the UN in New York raised the alarm, where no one else would. Nothing, was done. During M23's month-long presence, the systematic targeting stopped. On January 17, M23 withdrew as requested, placing Uvira under international protection. But no international force arrived. MONUSCO had already left South Kivu at Kinshasa’s request months earlier. Within hours, VDP Wazalendo returned. Three Banyamulenge churches and one school burned on January 18 alone. Pastor Budederi and his wife were abducted. Homes marked “Banyarwanda” were looted and destroyed. Of Uvira’s Banyamulenge families, only seven remained. ALSO READ: Does sanctioning Rwanda save the Banyamulenge? For 30 years, the word ibyitso, infiltraters, has haunted Congolese Tutsi. The Kinshasa-backed FDLR brought this language with them in 1994. Now cafards, cockroaches, echoes through South Kivu's hills, the same dehumanization preceding the same violence. Even CODECO's killings of Hema civilians follow this script, as if the lexicon of genocide has become the region's common tongue. ALSO READ: RTLM to international sanctions: When empty tins make the most noise When language dehumanizes like genocide, mobilizes mobs like genocide, burns churches like genocide, and hunts families like genocide, we are not observing random violence. We are watching state policy; a sequence that has played before. ALSO READ: The language of ethnic cleansing: from Ngoma to the Great Lakes In 2003, Banyamulenge refugees burned alive in Gatumba, Burundi, while UNHCR watched. Today, Burundian forces operate again in South Kivu alongside the Kinshasa-backed FDLR and VDP Wazalendo militias so powerful they chased FARDC General Gasita from the region simply for being Munyamulenge. Now more than 80% of the Banyamulenge population of Uvira have fled north to Kamanyola. History repeats when consequences don't. The international community keeps searching for red lines, while Tutsi communities have learned a different lesson: human rights are something you give yourself, or they doesn't exist. The question Uvira raises isn't whether the West cares; it's whether they pay attention, as the same church burns down for the fifth time in the second most militarized zone on earth. Uvira has witnessed the sophisticated machinery of state-policy genocide, leaving families fleeing in the night lest they be lynched in broad daylight. ALSO READ: Who is human enough to the UN? Uvira confirms what the displaced already know: when violence is predictable but politically inexpensive, it continues. When Banyamulenge churches burn, it is because the cost of lighting the match remains zero. Nothing here is new. The same Kinshasa-backed FDLR, the same dehumanizing language, the same burned churches. What must become new is refusing to pretend this sequence is mysterious or unpredictable. It is not. It is a choice that keeps getting made because it keeps being allowed. Seven families remain in Uvira. The rest learned the lesson the hard way: you survive by building the conditions for survival, or you become a footnote in someone else's pattern.
