Congolese army, FARDC, which has been battling various illegally armed militias in the vast country’s east captured another Rwandan militia commander, ‘Col’ Marc Nizeyimana, alias Marc Masambaka, according to latest reports. Nizeyimana, who was captured on the banks of River Rusizi along with more than 20 of his escorts on March 1, was the Deputy Commander of FLN militia’s northern sector in Kalehe territory, which was thrashed by the Congolese army last year leading to hundreds being captured and repatriated to Rwanda. The FLN is the armed wing of the terror group’s larger organisation called the Conseil national pour la renaissance et la démocratie (CNRD). Nizeyimana is currently held by the Congolese army at Uvira in South Kivu. With the militia’s northern sector stronghold, in Kalehe territory, hit hard by persistent FARDC clashes and ambushes, it is reported that the militia’s remnants are trying to flee further east while a few others remain trapped in their hideouts in the high plateaus of Kalehe territory, in South Kivu Province. End last year, the Congolese government handed over to Rwanda hundreds of militia fighters from the terror group. The CNRD is one of the groups that split from FDLR, an offshoot of the forces and militia groups that crossed into DR Congo from Rwanda after killing more than a million people during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in 2016. The group now in disarray was previously led by former FDLR vice president ‘Lt Gen’ Laurent Ndagijimana, alias, Wilson Irategeka or Rumbago, who was killed last year. When the Congolese army stepped up its offensive against anti-Kigali terror groups in the country’s east, last year, many Rwandans got a chance to flee from their erstwhile masters. The FLN, the group’s military wing, is led by Lt Gen Habimana Hamada. But who is Col’ Marc Nizeyimana, alias Marc Masambaka? More than a decade ago, Nizeyimana, then a Major, was the S3 – responsible for training, and operations planning – of FDLR’s Zodiac battalion; the latter’s first battalion of the reserve brigade. Originally from Rubengera in Kibuye, Nizeyimana grew up in camp Kigali as his father was a corporal in the ex-FAR. He married a Congolese wife with whom they have an unknown number of children. Nizeyimana went to primary school at camp Kigali before completing secondary school education in Nyamasheke, Cyangugu. He attended the Nyakinama campus of the then National University in Ruhengeri where he studied science and education. From July 1994 onwards, he lived in a refugee camp in Kashusha, South Kivu. At the end of 1996, he was recruited into the armed forces in Tingi Tingi where he was part of the 36th promotion of the Ecole Supérieure Militaire (ESM). When he completed ESM training, he went to Congo-Brazzaville. He returned to DR Congo in 1998. A year later, in 1999, he returned to train at the ESM in Mpelembe, Pweto, in the Haut-Katanga Province. In 2000, he enrolled at the University of Lubumbashi to study science and education where he obtained a degree in November 2002. In the past, he has held various functions including heading a militia platoon in Katanga, commanding a company in Walikale territory of North Kivu Province, among others.
