By Thousand Hills Info June 2, 2020
Uncertainty in Mikenke
It is for 8 months that the Banyamulenge of Itombwe and Kamombo have been confined in a camp for displaced persons of Mikenke in the Itombwe sector; very close to the Monusco camp.
These displaced people had been forced to flee their villages completely, destroyed because of the Mai Mai, Red-Tabara, Forebu, Fnl attacks… after the latter devastated their villages and took away most of their cattle. Mikenke’s choice was the presence of the military position of Monusco.
We welcome the intervention of MONUSCO; otherwise the ordeal would have been a mass murder
However, this Thursday May 28, 2020 at six o’clock in the morning, they were attacked in the camp by the MAIMAIs from KIPUPU and MIKENKE center, one kilometer from the military positions without any intervention either from one or the other. the other, among the four FARDC positions based in Mikenke center.
The displaced people are concentrated in this MONUSCO camp, in an uncertainty about their security which could, at any time, deteriorate, because they are still surrounded by the MAI MAI from here and there. The risks of being attacked are still possible.
Had it not been for the safe-man and for the intervention of MONUSCO, the majority of the displaced would have been massacred in large numbers; adding the fear of extermination of Banyamulenge which we evoke every day.
For hundreds of villages that made up Itombwe and Kamombo, only this camp for internally displaced persons of Mikenke remains today; while other communities are settling better and better in these localities abandoned by the Banyamulenge. This attack would aim to terrorize these peaceful Banyamulenge citizens, who resisted this macabre plan to uproot them on the lands of their ancestors.
It is with great honor that we thank the effort made by Monusco based in Mikenke, to prevent this carnage which should take place with regard to Banyamulenge.
The defensive that they operated to seek to return the 150 cows carried away by the Mai Mai is an act of commitment that must be welcomed. It should be noted in passing that this engagement led to injuries within the elements of Monusco based in Mikenke.
It is also necessary to recall that almost the entire Itombwe sector is under the control of Mai Mai, without the FARDC talking about it, nor the provincial government or the national government. All are silent as if the Mai Mai are administering this administrative entity in their name and on their behalf.
This is why we are neither afraid nor afraid of denouncing the total complicity of our government, and of our army in this project of ethnic cleansing of the Banyamulenge community while covering ourselves with the curtain of Mai Mai; recruiting from neighboring communities.
In this macabre plan of ethnic cleansing, the designers of this plan have opted for the qualification of an intercommunity war as an explanation. Such reasoning is absurd and aberrant.
Tomorrow it was for the carnage of the Banyamulenge of Minembwe whose captain Kasereka Dieudonné does everything to hide the reality and today it is Mikenke. What would be the reasons that will be launched by Captain Kasereka Dieudonné to justify this inability to prevent?
Qualifying Violence: Diverting Attention
Let Banyamulenge be less cunning to detect this cunning in the logic of qualification; nor are they sensitive to feel the pain inflicted on them. However, we believe that at all possible times our efforts will be focused on denouncing the genocide to which they are subject and the injustices of all kinds to which they are victims.
We ask the whole world to put pressure on the Congolese state to stop as soon as possible this carnage perpetrated specifically against the Banyamulenge community. We recognize that violence affects many innocent people and communities; but remember that none of these is contested on the basis of its membership of the Congolese state except the Banyamulenge.
As there is no shortage of words, he said in his press release published on May 28, 2020 to social networks that the 7 displaced people were injured and affected only by stray bullets; language considered by victims to be vexatious and reckless. This language minimizes the barbaric acts of which the victims were victims, and its strong internal manifested in the spirit of its press release does indeed show its part taken.
Concerned about the deterioration of the security and humanitarian situation in Minembwe and its surroundings; convinced that this war is only aimed at the elimination and expulsion of the Banyamulenge in the middle and highlands of the territories of Fizi, Uvira and Itombwe. Considering the exorbitant number of losses of human life, devastated villages on the three territories where the Banyamulenge settled;
It is since the night of Monday and Tuesday May 25-26, 2020, that all the shops of Minembwe center have been looted by the FARDC.
Most of these stores and warehouses belong to members of the Bashi communities. However, there were other stores (in small numbers) that belonged to other communities including the Banyamulenge.
These looting are in line with the events that began since the weekend of May 23, 2020, when the FARDC invaded the fields of citizens living in Minembwe; act to which the Twirwaneho self-defense elements opposed.
Subsequently, an armed confrontation opposed the FARDC and TWIRWANEHO in Minembwe between May 23-25, 2020 following the Ilundu incident, which took place on Saturday May 23, 2020, setting fire to the powder.
These clashes which had started from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. for the day Sunday and which had resulted in loss of human life, and other wounded people including the spokesperson of the army, Captain Kasereka Dieudonné only wants to reduce the exact number of deaths so as not to attract attention, around these incidents marking the weakness of the FARDC based in Minembwe.
Given that there are still several people among the population who have not yet been found and whose lives are uncertain; but also the armed confrontation cannot lead to multiple pangs of which the damage becomes clearer over time.
While our eyes were fixed on Minembwe, an attack occurred in Mikenke around the MONUSCO base, and in the middle of 4 FARDC military positions. The attack targeted internally displaced Banyamulenge.
This Thursday May 28, 2020 at six in the morning, they were attacked in the camp by the Mai-Mai coming from Kipupu and Mikenke center, one kilometer from the four military positions.
Had it not been for MONUSCO’s limited efforts, we would have experienced unprecedented carnage. The intervention of the FARDC elements would have taken place a little late for reasons which are difficult to decipher.
Some sources indicate that elements of the national army were engaged to recover the cows, which had been carried away by the Mai Mai. However, the experience of this whole period of crisis (2017-2020) has significantly reduced confidence.
This attack left seven people injured, some of them in critical condition. Some were sent to Bukavu for appropriate care; while others are still in Mikenke.
Among the wounded, there is a man with his mother over 70, a father with his wife and two children and a child of the Prefect of the Kitindi Bideri Nyabarega Institute. Until the evening, the distress can be read on the faces of these displaced persons who believed they had protection from the United Nations.
In addition, nothing guarantees what will happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. What a coincidence ? Can we see isolated incidents or the result of uprooting?
Uncertainty in Minembwe
the FARDC had invaded the fields of citizens living in Minembwe
During two to three days, the confrontation of Minembwe, last weekend was characterized by the exchange of rounds from machine guns and other heavy weapons launched by the FARDC against the Twirwaneho, who were only defending against the attacks. directed to them.
In the process, Tuesday May 26, 2020 the positions of the FARDC based in Kivumu and Kabingo would have united with the militiamen MAÏ MAÏ, BILOZEBISHAMBUKE, FOREBU and RED-TABARA from Lulenge and Milimba, with the aim of taking the rural commune of Minembwe and KIZIBA aerodrome in Fizi Territory, South Kivu Province / DRC and expel the Banyamulenge and strip them of their heritage.
Even though the Mai Mai have been repelled by the Twirwaneho, they still remain almost in all the outskirts of central Minembwe, and what prevents them from entering is not only the strength of Twirwaneho they fear, but rather he This is a strategy used by their sponsors, to first evacuate members of the Bashi community to Minembwe, in order to appeal to the Mai Mai to carry out their plan against the Banyamulenge.
This war is only aimed at the elimination and expulsion of the Banyamulenge in the middle and highlands of the territories of Fizi, Uvira and Itombwe.
We once again call on the international community and the States to intervene to save the Banyamulenge, exposed to a genocide whose signs are visible. We believe that more pressure is needed on His Excellency the President of the Republic Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, as the guarantor of national security, to realize that this genocide should not be committed during his mandate; regardless of the complex conditions he inherited when he came to power.
Me MANIRAGABA BYASHONI
