Is M23 arresting refugees who are returning home?

 

There are reports that young people returning  to areas occupied by the M23 are being arrested and missing. The families of the victims are worried. 

After the occupation of houses by unknown individuals in Masisi territory, several local sources claim that young people returning to these areas are arrested and taken to a secret location.

“Since the beginning of this month, more than 45 young people who returned to Kitshanga have been arrested, we don’t even know where they were taken, no one here talks about it for fear of suffering the same fate,” confides a resident of the city. from Kitshanga.

"There is a certain Bishop Bahani, he is known because he was the goalkeeper of the FC Muungano football team who was recently arrested upon his arrival in Kitshanga. He has joined the long list of others, we are very worried because we do not know if they are still alive or they are dead. They are accused of being spies and collaborators of FDLR,” said another local source. 

 This wave of arrests of young people in the Bashali chiefdom, in Kitshanga, has been denounced by several anonymous sources. These arrests, attributed to the M23 rebels, mainly target young people returning to this region for family reasons. These young people would be accused, without evidence, of being spies or members of Wazalendo resistance groups.  One of the latest cases reported is that of Mr. Bishop Bahani, a former goalkeeper of the Muungano FC football team in Kitshanga. Having fled the clashes in 2023, Bishop Bahani settled in Goma, where he worked as a security guard in a school. Last Tuesday, as he returned to visit his family back in Kitshanga, he was immediately arrested and thrown in prison by the M23-RDF rebels.  Bishop Bahani, like so many other young people, was arbitrarily arrested upon his arrival in Kitshanga. They are detained illegally, and no one dares to talk about it for fear of reprisals,” says one of our sources who requested anonymity. She reports that some of these young people are then transferred to Bwiza, in the Rutshuru territory, where the conditions of detention remain unknown.  She urges the Congolese authorities and human rights organizations to intervene for the release of these young people, whose detention is considered illegal and arbitrary. The movement highlights the urgency of action to put an end to these human rights violations which sow fear and terror among people.

Another source specifies that these young people are taken to the village of Bwiza, but the conditions of their detention are unknown because family members have no access.